


A Herald of the House of Valois

by nwindchaser



Category: Henry V (1989)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Historical References, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-05-13 22:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 192,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5718937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwindchaser/pseuds/nwindchaser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls,<br/>Our debts, our careful wives<br/>Our children and our sins lay on the king!<br/>What infinite heart's-ease<br/>Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!</p>
<p>Henry V is a King of England who remakes the world around him as he sees it, but for one stubborn herald of the house of Valois, he is infinite heart's-ease and infinite heartbreak.</p>
<p>This is a work in progress!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Way or Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something is in the air after the battle, felt, but unspoken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A meeting between herald and king taking place between Act 4, Scenes 7 and 8.

Bright noon had waned, joy with it, when the captain finally found the French herald. The horrors in the field were lit by a thin and tired afterglow, the sun itself blanching at the morning’s outcome, its watery light bringing no heat to stave away the chills from fighting men sweating off the fever of their exertions. Swearing softly under his breath in Welsh, the captain did not bother to hide his violent scowl as he made a brisk beeline for the crouching man. “ _Find me that French herald, Fluellen_ ,” he muttered, “ _I would speak to him… of great importance_ … whole damned battlefield he could be in, and that damned man all the way at the end of it.” Before the royal tent, the king had singled him out amongst all his officers and whispered in his ear, Dukes and Earls clustered to his left and right to eavesdrop on those secret orders. Against his own inclinations the captain felt a grudging pity for the herald, who had spent the day dodging arrows and tending the dead. There was a dogged perseverance and degree of reverence to his actions that struck the Englishman as he approached. It stood in marked contrast to the busy action all around as jumpy scavengers, blind to the herald’s efforts or in spite of them, searched bodies roughly and with brutal efficiency, their knives flashing here and there to liberate a gem or garment. They scattered at the sight of the armed man, but reformed in his wake like tattered human-shaped bands of crows.

As the Englishman’s approach became unavoidably clear, Montjoy strangled an instinctive urge to hurry away; a housecat retreating indoors before the storm. Common sense and urgency kept him at his task and feigning ignorance, he bent back to gently wiping grime from a frozen face, hoping to match the pale and broken features to name and title. The cold had made his hands stiff, dull, and he could not juggle ink, quill, paper and dead men with any semblance of grace. A list tucked under his arm had the occasional smudges of mud, a cringing embarrassment to the unfailingly neat herald, but even without consulting it he could see the names, faces and arms of the dead swimming up before his eyes, the lions dancing upon two legs and mocking him with their crooked tongues. He might have stayed at the French camp, at a proper desk before a proper fire, tallying the reports of the minor heralds, but he could not trust them to see in the dead the faces of the living nor bring to the living surety of the dead. Thinking now of their progress, he raised his head and tracked their slim figures out in the distance as they counted bodies for the general tally, sighing. _God help me to see this duty right_.

His responsibility to deliver unto the many lords new-made that day a token of their fathers’ deaths, not to mention dead brothers and uncles and cousins, sat uneasily in his mind. The bands of looters had been unkind, the sheer scale of mortality intimidating, and stripping corpses of their worldly goods had stuck a trembling to his hands and a biding horror in his mind that he was sure would not go easily.  Most would have to take the death of a relative or a friend upon his sworn word, whatever it was worth. Perhaps after enough such envoys, the sight of him would invoke dread and superstition, as befitting any messenger of death. He sighed again, eyes alighting on another group of Frenchmen in the distance, this time weary squires loading a cart with the noble bodies he had previously identified. Victorious, the English had claim to all the field and its precious refuse, but weary from the slaughter they had not come to argue their case and in the meantime he would see to it that as few irreplaceable French heirlooms as possible ended up bartered away for cheap wine or women or a hand of dice. He winced as the men shook out a hand from a gauntlet before they tossed it onto the growing pile, but their hard faces did not flinch at the sight, and grimly he suspected he would be the same by the day’s end.

The Englishman was almost upon him and he tore himself away from the gruesome collectors to concentrate, willing away the specters of death and dancing designs so that the dead man’s name could rise unhindered from his memory and with a brief muttered prayer for his soul, Montjoy wrote one more lord into the count. He hoped that when the time came to distribute his jeweled burden, he would not put the wrong ring into the wrong hands, and have to watch relief and rage rise like twinned dark constellations in the face of the bereaved. Rising shakily to greet the Englishman he winced as blood rushed into strained limbs. “The king will see you now,” the captain said. He had tried to make himself neutral in face, voice and words, but Montjoy saw deep down he was restraining an entirely unreasonable desire to strike the herald. The Englishman’s insolent tone was neither the first nor the last ill effect that would be born of the day’s slaughter. He waited momentarily for an explanation, but the captain said nothing more, only sank further into his stubborn grimace. Perhaps the English king was anxious, or thought the numbers smaller, or simply expected more and faster in the way that monarchy so often did, Montjoy knew the true reason mattered little. He looked out to the broken landscape and its as-yet nameless numbers, and made an attempt to explain he recognized as futile even as he aired it.

As expected, the captain, blood still caked down his cheeks and crusted dark in his grey beard, had only impatience and contempt to show; one hand resting on the hilt of his sword as if he would like nothing more than to draw it. From one working man to another, he gave the herald a look encapsulating entirely his conviction that if anyone was going to be giving the king excuses it was certainly not going to be him, and even more certainly not for a Frenchman. Montjoy knew then the man’s bland statement at the fore had been purely in courtesy for his office and another man not so armored by blazon and tabard would have been summarily manhandled back to the English camp. He stalled, mildly tempted to test the weft of the captain’s honor and see if that delicate weave of custom and law would hold against  his direct refusal to comply, but to their right, the men who had been loading the cart now approached with dark and wary faces. They looked to him for guidance, and the hostility inherent in their gaze prompted the captain to grip his weapon and subtly shift his stance. Quickly, Montjoy waved them off with an exhortation in French to continue without him. The captain gestured the way, a terse flick of the hand, barely an invitation. It was a long trek back to the English side but still not enough time for the herald to stop the hateful trembling in his hands.

He was led in gloomy silence to a drab tent at the juncture of camp and field. It was a functional, well-worn thing, the office of an officer like the one that now bowed his head as he entered elevated company. From the sinister faces that lurked around it, the looming ogre that is Exeter; Bedford and Gloucester, looking nothing like brothers; the herald realized just how much the English had lost with the pillaging of their baggage train. Exeter eyed him warily like a bear protecting its cubs, Westmoreland with a hawk’s bloody gaze. _Why are they confined to pacing outside the king’s tent?_ Though the hour was late, none of the king’s close council had removed their armor or cleaned dried blood off skin and plate, and no one said a word. In the face of the youngest, a forward pugnacity and dislike shone through the stains but his brother had one hand on his shoulder and held him back, glowering but silent. With that sudden acuity of perception that came with dread Montjoy saw both mace and sword lingering in their hands, and the air seemed tense rather than thankful, as if the battle had yet to be won. Unceremoniously, the captain divested him of everything he had and announced him into the tent with a callous shove. A sharp intake of breath was his only preparation. The interior was cramped, dark. His gaze was instantly drawn to the king. England sat alone before a small fire, hunched over in bloodstained clothes. His throne was a trunk and his crown crusted mud, but his half-illuminated eyes burned with the same intensity as ever. Lions seemed to prowl a dark field all of blood across his back, the red cloth thrown into shadow while across the way the French blue caught the dancing light and seemed alive. A sorry testament to the day, Montjoy thought, but there were few left who could tell Harry England not to wear the fleur-de-lis. He bowed deeply. The king made no response.

Surveying the tent, Montjoy realized this was the first he was alone with the English king. The thought electrified the air. No privy councilor or courtier or servant in sight to bear the burden of the royal gaze, though to be completely accurate the king was staring moodily into the fire, leaving the herald free to take careful stock of his person. Like his lords he had left the blood on his face and mud had darkened his fair hair to a more fitting somber shade. _Had it been stained so when he dismounted to charge the French line?_ Then, he had been in the grip of a rage so fearsome it had beamed across the churning battlefield to Montjoy like a vision of God, a chilling promise of disgrace and defeat. That face once so fixed in hatred now was closed and pensive. That body once so invincible as man after man was cut down before it now was bent over, stripped of its battle fervor. And those hands that had made it all happen now were clasped before the fire, and to the herald the king looked for all the world like a man praying in his private chapel.

Suddenly Henry lifted his eyes and Montjoy firmly took his nerves in hand as Henry demanded, “What is the count of the dead?” Frantically, the herald’s gaze leapt to the relative safety of the royal shadow at the tent’s back as he recited the figures from memory.

“Your majesty, the count so far, of French knights and gentlemen, near six thousand. Of princes and lords, thirty-two including my lord Charles Constable of France, John Duke of Alencon, Anthony Duke of Brabant, Edward Duke of Bar, Phillip Count of Nevers.”

He received numbness fondly as he named the dead; kept it in his voice to mask the pain, the hideous numbers, the familiar names. This time, he had no persona to play, and it was that much harder with no royal arrogance to mask his own unease, only a deep weakness poorly covered by apathy and trembling fingers that would not be stilled. He felt dead men’s skin at his fingertips once more, that unforgettable slickness of sliding eyelids over staring eyes, and ruthlessly suppressed a shudder.

“Of English lords, Edward Duke of York, and of other men, eleven.”

Though Montjoy had just confirmed an English victory so utter and astounding as to cast a shadow over his most illustrious ancestors, the king did not move or his countenance alter. All in the tent was unnatural stillness, and the empty depths drew the dancing firelight to hems and corners where it was quenched in shadow. While the king brooded, Montjoy gauged the English state. The king’s heavy armor had been laid next to a pile of pillows and bedding, awaiting the attentions of a servant, the helm’s empty slits somehow taunting. Henry had not worn his full plate to the battle and seeing him so lightly armored the herald had marveled at his bravery, his confidence. Much later, it would prove to be frightening foresight instead. His shield was absent. _Was it lost on the field?_ Montjoy would have remembered seeing it. His sword was sheathed and leant against his seat. His studded gloves were haphazardly discarded before the fire. More iron-banded trunks like the one under the king sat by the far walls, but there was little else to fill the tent and the sparse, lonely space elicited a wave of sympathy for which the herald instantly felt foolish. This was a victorious king, after all. He wondered that the king was not suffused with joy; that no elation or pride or vainglory turned up his nose and no recognition of the miracle he had wrought came over his fair features with condescension, none of those things marred the royal countenance, only a deep and dark melancholy that had settled about his shoulders as an ermine cloak of darkest jet, and shadows that bowed his head before a small, cold flame. Impossibly, Montjoy was moved to console him, but he could not think of anything to console him of. 

Abruptly, Henry spoke with unjustified familiarity, as if to a close confident. “Tell me, Montjoy, have you ever seen such a battle?” Startled, his eyes jumped to the king’s face, searching for answers; then he remembered how, eons ago, the king had asked his name. Then, the gesture had touched him: an unexpected act of respect from a dead man, unlikely to be repeated. Now, the herald could laugh at himself. _Ransom! What a joke._ All his gut-clenching worry had been for naught, all his sentiments derisible. At battle’s end, all his inner betrayals were rendered hollow. _What this king must think of such a tactless herald_. Suddenly he was reminded of distant King Charles with that distracted air of social superiority, and how the English court had crackled with an unseen energy, like walking through a lightning storm. His voice, when he finally answered, was calm. “Great king, I have never seen a battle so great and so terrible.”

He might have said more, the short reply sliding slowly under the murky silence, but all his experience and all his skill could not summon wit in the thick air of the tent. _What do you want from me, Henry of England? Not your victory, I have given it. Not your numbers, I have tallied them. What more then do you require of a Frenchman?_ The Black Prince himself, at only sixteen, had lingered on the vast victorious field of Crecy to honor a slain enemy, and mourn his death; the blind Hungarian king who had fought so valiantly, so uselessly, for the wrong side.

_What strange men the isle of England makes, their actions unbefitting and discomforting and nigh uncanny._

The king seemed to be looking through the herald as he muttered vaguely “Nor have I…” Not hours before, Montjoy had wondered at the ranks before him, how could they be so many? An extraordinary sea of garlands and gilt; their armor combined glaring like the surface of a lake in the sun, their horses a great milling herd. So many strong arms had arrived in such timely fashion that it had seemed like God himself was assembling his heavenly host. In contrast the English had been so pitifully few, not even enough to bloody the arms of the latter warriors. Not minutes before, the herald had counted heads where there were heads and then bodies, and then arms, each earning for their plight just a thin and crooked line of ink in a thin column. Each man at arms had lined up as a bull to a pagan slaughter, defiant, strong and proud, and ultimately helpless in the face of his own doom.

Now, as he stood in the tabard of the enemy before Harry England, Montjoy wondered again at this man… this king, who had with peasant boot trod into the mud of Agincourt the flower and youth of French chivalry. _What can he be thinking that has cast such shadow onto his face?_ The king let out a keening gasp, so soft the herald imagines he heard it. “Was it so long ago I was demanding goose feathers for arrows? Here they lie, in their thousands.” The king’s gaze slid away to the flames again, as if burdened by the weight of his voice. Here, by the Grace of God, is the man who had willed his small and tired band to overwhelming victory. Here, is the conqueror triumphant pausing over the deaths of the enemy. He had walked the vanquished battlefield and his boots were stained with putrefaction. His mind was stained with sorrow, it showed heartbreakingly close to the surface of his face. However gallingly presumptuous, the herald could feel his composure melting at the sight of it. “Your majesty…”

But the king did not let him continue; he threw up an imperious hand and commanded, “Come closer, herald. I can barely hear you.” Montjoy knew his voice carried well enough across the small tent; his English clear, exact and flawless. He thought it strange for the king to lie and hesitated; considered the ground and its hierarchy of light as if he had a decision to make, a choice of diverging paths. The sun filtered through the thick cloth to mingle with the dancing orange flame, shadow played across his feet. Desperately he found welling up within him an unexpected hatred of the dead, a hatred almost physical, an abhorrence for his duty to tend to them; their neediness in death; their staring eyes. Several heartbeats later, he approached the king as he would have a sprawling lion. Though this was not his own mad monarch he felt a strange turmoil in his stomach, born of princely unpredictability. They are close enough now that if the herald had had a blade he could have leapt over the low fire and struck Henry down before the king could have raised a weapon in defense, but instead Henry uses the proximity to pin the herald with his level stare as firmly as a collector with an intransigent specimen. “You must think me a bloody tyrant.” His voice is half accusing, half pleading.

Montjoy knew fatigue then, treacherously coming down onto his mind in a wet and clammy haze just as he steps out onto the knife’s edge. He felt his heart in his throat, beating out its traitorous admiration, each thump daring him to speak its true nature. In the depths of his gut he cannot avoid the sickening memory of the ground turning to mud with French blood. “I am only a simple herald,” he said, “I cannot say, one way or another.” He discerned thinly pressed disappointment on the lips of the king, whose unhappiness affected the herald more deeply than expected. “You are being dishonest,” said Henry.

 “You have answered to king and emperor, memorized their words and laid bare their sentiments. This land is mine by right, and I shall not rule in hatred in fear. I will know the mind of its people, and here and now, you are their best messenger.”

Montjoy sighed; the king would have him dig his own grave. Suspended in a moment of indecision, he felt keenly Henry’s even gaze. It was steady and faultless, a rock upon which to command a nation of blood-thirsty bickering warriors, an honest gaze which begets honesty. “Then, no, I do not,” he said finally. “Your majesty does not rule in France, so how could thou a tyrant be? As for bloody, all men understand that honor and glory is sometimes so... regrettably.” _Defiance. Praise. Regret._ He held his breath as the next moment will tell if he had struck the right balance to please the king. Henry rewards him with a smile, as sad and bitter as the sad bitterness that held together his own bland neutrality like thick mortar to crumbling brick.

Then the king shifted, the lions danced, and Montjoy was astonished at the liberty he had been beguiled into taking. So humbled, he looked away, saying, “Highness, by the state of the field, honor and glory is thine in excess this day.” Henry shook his head slowly. “Montjoy, does it not pain you to speak this way?” The king was observant to the herald’s eyes; they narrowed briefly, a wavering from their earnest passivity. _Do you mean to ask if it pains me to be French on this day? I have lost no brothers today, but six thousand brothers-in-arms. I have not felt the agony of arrow shot, but the whistling air haunts me just the same._ “If it does,” the herald said, “I do not feel the single drop in the downpour.” _What is one more concession from me? Words, only. Others have died._ Henry was disconcerted by the answer. “Your fingers are trembling,” he observed. _Are they?_ Montjoy raised up his right hand for closer inspection. Indeed, there was a tremor at the very edge of each pale digit. So distracted, his tired mind narrowing in, he was slow to react as the king rose, and gasped a little when suddenly Henry was right beside him, surveying him with an indecipherable look, close enough that the smell of blood and wet leather and iron beats at his senses.

“I have seen ten or thirty or a hundred hungry Englishmen all around you and still the cant of your nose was impeccably proud, how now, Montjoy, you are shaking?” _Am I? Why are we talking about me?_ He took a slow step back, lowering his hand, drawing out his words. “A trick of the firelight, your majesty, I’m afraid my nose is the same as ever. If I had known it so displeases, I would have endeavored more greatly to hide it.” The bitter smile crept back onto the king’s face. “No wind to throw the fire into trembling here.” Montjoy balked at the knowing words. “Then it must be fatigue, or the onset of illness, truly I do not know the cause.” He raised his hand halfway to his eyes as if to wipe exhaustion from them, but the remembrance of death on his skin made him drop the motion just as quickly, half-completed, and he made do with blinking rapidly in the soft twilight. Henry reached forward to grip his shoulder, preventing further escape. “Montjoy, are you afraid?” he asked. It was a strong, almost painful hold. It was a dangerous moment that flickered this way and that. The king’s grasp was a hot iron bind as fiendish as any torture device. His eyes bored into the herald’s pounding head. Montjoy was tempted to cant his nose just so, but he put aside defiance and pride for a soft, matter-of-fact response that seemed more fitting. “No, your majesty.” Henry’s eyes are narrowed, as if he doesn’t believe. “Shouldn’t you be?” With a dismissive sound, the herald shrugged and had to brace himself against the sudden stress as the king leaned heavily on his shoulder, hanging his head. “I am glad… Today I find all men stare at me in a new light. Except you, it seems.” _Of course they do. The battle has been a bloody baptism, and now you are no untested whelp, no youthful king fresh from the petty Irish squabbles, you are a conqueror._ He can see these stares haunting the king’s eyes.

“They have seen the slaughter, and now they are afraid of me.”

“They are in awe of thee. They shall say, at Agincourt we beheld a miracle, performed by the king.”

“You think so?”

“Does it matter much what men think of thee?”

“It matters more than the world.”

“Your majesty, I stood at the end of the hill and I saw the Englishmen take the field, I saw their patience taking orders, their ferociousness, their bravery in the absence of armor, mount and shield. Where they were weak, they disregarded the knowledge. Where they were strong, they were invincible. I saw long arrows fall like a constant silver rain and archers that knew no fatigue or fear. In all of Christendom, there is no army such as that, and it is all because of love and loyalty to thee.”

Mortifyingly, his voice caught on the last sentence, a brief hitch he hoped passed unremarked. _Doesn’t your heart feel pain, when you speak this way?_ Those darkened eyes searched his face long and hard. _And who are you, English king, to speak to me of pain on this day?_ Each word was a pinhole through which some black emotion from a churning pool of hate leaked out to drip upon his heart, drop by acid drop as searing as the poison that blinds the trickster god the Vikings say is kept chained away beneath the earth. _Better to be amongst the quiet dead than this slow wringing torture._  “I should not waste your time further, great king. This is the day you are made England’s hero-- God’s champion.” Henry shuddered at the blackness beneath the laudatory veneer, the statement delivered by the herald as precisely as a razor designed to pare away men’s skin. Through words alone Montjoy manages to turn the king’s gaze from him, but Henry was not so easily balked from his purpose.

“That is not how you shall send to Rouen, to Paris-- Is it, Montjoy?”

“I am bound to return my master a most truthful account of the day, your majesty.”

“What will you say?”

Henry’s gaze was no more unsteady than when he declared the war, when he was all white-hot rage caged in flawless composure, but the consequences of that speech had since tempered his hunger with black guilt, and now he craved from the herald some release from the dread empathy that afflicted him, some life-giving form of resolution, demanded it with all his royal bearing, his confidence. Though Montjoy could see his way clear, his only needful platitudes and pardons and escapes, the herald had a biding anger and a midnight sorrow in his soul that could not be assuaged by tinny diplomacy, and unmoved by royal need, he armed each next pronouncement with a barbed sting.

“I saw knights drown in shallow mud. Heard others scream as they slowly died, immobile and propped up by handfuls of arrows. Crushed by their own horses. Impaled upon rough stakes. Some had their lives ended by children. Others, their throats slit by Englishmen after giving up their gauntlets.”

The words harden Henry’s expression as clearly as watching an eon of petrification, and Montjoy felt fear come over him as the king thinned his lips and wrinkled his forehead, but his eyes are now holding the king’s gaze with that same imperiousness he had since denied. He could not stop himself. _Why should a king not be reprimanded when he trades in honor for cruel practicality?_ He tried to hold his thoughts together through a dense red fog, but his hands are clenched at his side. They are no longer trembling, they are white. The man’s gaze, his unerring attention, made him tense and tired. The ability to think on his feet, after days without proper sleep, had deserted him. The rest of his comprehension was rapidly sliding through his fingers. _When had a herald ever spoken so much of his own words, and had to consider each one’s import?_  

“I saw disbelief in their eyes, their shock and horror as they died, not knowing why. I will return my royal master, the English army is a fearsome thing. I will say to the Dauphin, the English king keeps all his promises. And I will answer the widows when they ask, your husband’s life was ended at an English knife…”

“Enough!” Henry’s shout was low and hollow, almost an outrushing of impassioned air bereft of sound. Abruptly, the king’s hand closed on the herald’s tabard, grabbing a handful of cloth as if to drag him forward, then thinking twice Henry reversed the gesture and thrust him away. Unprepared for the sudden attack, Montjoy staggered and fell swiftly to the ground, where he lay still, breathing heavily, saying nothing, his eyes warily expectant of another blow. But in the same instant of stark rage, Henry was all regret and agonized remorse, dropping to his knees beside the herald and murmuring, “I am sorry, Montjoy. I am so sorry.” He held on to the front of the herald’s tabard as if clutching him over a great chasm, and all blood drained from Montjoy’s face when he observed in the soft and flickering gloom that the king’s eyes were wet and crimson. Instantly, he forgot himself, forgot his bitter sadness and his selfish rage and took hold of the king’s hand with kindness.

“Your majesty, you have nothing to be sorry for.” Against the light Henry’s hair was golden fire, his eyes gems shrouded in velvet, and his head bowed as if in confession.

“I am the death of thousands--- promised and delivered by my hand, God in heaven, how is one man to answer for all this death?” In his heart Montjoy suffered the agony of his own doing. Too late, he repented his harsh words. _Who am I, to speak to you of pain on this day?_ The king’s impassioned cry was the sound of the world disintegrating. Fiercely the herald whispered back, “So what, your majesty, if thousands, or tens of thousands? It is the God-given duty of kings, no answer is needed.”

“Your friends… your countrymen...”

“They would not have cried for you. They would have paraded you through the streets, and beggared England for a king’s ransom.”

“I should not have given the order, oh Montjoy, how can I apologize-- to all the widows and the sons, the grieving daughters of France, how can I recall their fathers to them? Deserving knights, all lost, and it was I who struck them down. In cursed anger…”

“If it grieves your majesty so then strike us down no more, great king, and accept Aquitaine, accept Normandy into your holdings, the lands of your inheritance. Seek no more for grieving France.”

“Herald, to prove my own cause unjust would be an even worser crime.”

Montjoy feels like he is shoring up the endless tide as he exhorts, “Then harden your heart, Most Christian king. You are wrong to apologize.” The king recoiled as if struck. “This is the course you have chosen, and the justice you dispense.” It is a novelty for Henry to be spoken to thus, recalling him to younger years spent yearning for the approval of a father newly enthroned and suspicious of every eye’s quiver and finger’s twitch. “Take back your apology, English king, it is neither wanted nor accepted by France.” Montjoy’s face goes cold like a stranger, his eyes like hard flint, his mouth a cruel line, and he mocks the king, mocks his weakness and the weakness of all Englishmen in smooth vitriol so scornful Henry is set back on his heels with the shock of it.

“You cheapen the lives of ten thousand fine French knights, all their deaths made worthless by your pathetic English misery.”

The herald has never seen Henry’s eyes so wide but still the king hesitates. “Take back your apology, it is a foul insult to all brave knights fallen in your damned war.” Confusion and pain sweeps across the king’s face and in his heart Montjoy reaches for him but the herald’s soft condemnations have all the force of a galloping horse behind them.

“Or is this the limit of the English line? I see the Black Prince moaning into his shroud decayed, his bitter humiliation. I see Henry of Bolingbroke kneeling before my king and master. Take back your apology and take up your sword to punish the disrespect, English king, else they shall hear from Paris to Rome to Constantinople that England’s crown is made of soft lead and England’s king hides behind the backs of archers and slaughters good men like goats after their hands have been tied behind their backs...”

Henry is shaking like a leaf in the wind, but his face is turned away from the fire at his back and the herald cannot tell if it is from sorrow or from anger. Fear is beating against the back of his mind like a storm rattling the windows, but he is as lost in his cause as a deaf and blind man. He tramples unheeding over the king’s whispered denials, brushes them by as they build and build until finally Henry cannot take any more abuse and draws his dagger with a wordless cry, soaring rage his aspect, tears and sorrow briefly forgotten; in that moment, though he is profoundly terrified, Montjoy’s heart leaps with relief, and mind warring, body tense he shuts his mouth against any sound as the king strikes him fiercely across the cheek like a man laying down a duel to the death.

A gasp to silence, neither man moving, then Henry shrank into himself, getting to his feet so fast the herald had not yet turned back from the force of the blow before the king was already turned away, pressing the back of his left hand to his mouth as if he would throw up, the dagger languishing quietly forgotten in the right. Silently, Montjoy rose and explored the wound. _It will be colorful._ The edge of the metal has made a cut that seeped hotly down his face. _My contribution to the war effort, dear God, I have chastised their king for mourning our dead._

At the sound of the king’s voice, his kin rushed into the tent, weapons drawn, cries of alarm on their lips. They saw Henry with dagger in hand, features pale, and jumping to conclusions rushed to confront the herald, but Henry halted them with an outstretched palm, three fingers extended, only index and thumb still grasping the hilt of his weapon. The blade is a shard of painfully bright brilliance, inexorably drawing their eyes towards its burning edge as it catches both sun and firelight. His voice is calm and distant. “It is nothing at all, my lords,” he said, “I was merely remarking upon a lack of courtesy, but I have decided to be understanding given the circumstances.” Montjoy made a small, unsteady bow. He could see from their faces the lords did not understand the atmosphere in the tent, but at a royal glance and wave, they backed out reluctantly. Once more alone, Henry sheathed his weapon with a great sigh, and turned upon the herald, beholding him in an appraising light.

“Are you fearless, Montjoy?”

“I am petrified, Highness.”

“Come to my court and I shall give you a coat of arms and an estate and knight you. You shall be my bravest knight.” The king is affectionate again, his person exuding all-encompassing warmth, infinitely forgiving. As serious as he seemed, Montjoy raised a disbelieving brow and respectfully declined.

“You are right-- you are right, of course. What unseemly grief. Come to my court, Montjoy, who else will dare to speak to me thus, the next time I err so grievously?”

“Your majesty has not erred a single moment.”  

“What fearsome confidence you have in me, dear Montjoy,” he said, taking the herald’s hands in his own with a weak smile. “And what lengths you go to, to show it. I am duly flattered.” The king’s hands were warm, ungloved and callused… gentle, but anxiety lay behind Montjoy’s worried frown because Henry’s expression was now completely unreadable and his body distractingly close.

A moment of silence as the king paused, words on his lips, fear in his eyes. Then, “Have you lost anyone today?” It was kind of the king to enquire after a nameless herald’s wellbeing, and Montjoy said as much as he lightly deflected the question away, turmoil lighting up his eyes. Though Henry knew he was being floated away on platitudes, he thought twice about pursing the subject when he felt the subtle trembling at the fingertips begin again, and grasped the man’s hands just a little tighter. He held back though he wanted to comfort him, to push this man built from strung wires to catharsis and release from tears; he held back afraid that through his intervention the pale marbled face would fracture and the lean and fearless strength would fail at last. There was blood on the herald’s lips where he had bitten down, and the crimson drew Henry’s eyes. “I am glad I have not given you more cause to hate me,” he said.

Montjoy observed the king’s restraint, but not knowing what from made him tense and nervous. A burning sensation had taken hold of his hands. There was blood on the face of the king which he could not tear his eyes away from. “Great king,” he whispered, “I have as much to hate you, as to admire. One way—or another.” Then Henry, considering the herald’s expression for a moment, and the ringing tension in his body, impulsively swept him into a warm embrace, steadying the trembling with his own body and waiting until it has stilled completely before he spoke. _Blood and earth and sweat soaked leather but beneath a furnace, a forge, and a hammer striking a steady beat, I can feel us harmonize and though it is a breathtaking thing, it is not a good thing, it is not a right thing._ There, whispering into his ear, one hand possessively on the back of his neck, the king said, “Thank you for coming to ransom, dear Herald.” He held on just one beat longer, then swept grandly out of the tent, calling out as he went, “Come! We will put this place of death to rest. Uncles? Brothers?” as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

_He knows._

In the wake of the king, he hurried out. The Englishmen outside scrutinized him to a hair, their attention unnerving, so exaggerated as to be comical. The herald knew his face was pale and bleeding, his eyes wide and white, but swept along by the king, the Englishmen walked away without comment. He was glad for their silence. He was breathless with embarrassment. _All along he knew, no proud Constable of France arrayed in his gleaming battle state, would send again for ransom. Only some nameless, traitorous admiration—or affection._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	2. King Most Fearsome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day may be over, but duty calls each to his burdens.

At dusk, the gentle rose attire of the setting sun and its gilded light draped merciful shadow over the worst of the carnage, at last obscuring the faces of the dead. Those fortunate enough to have merited burial in the ground finally laid to rest in shallow runs, the joyful shouts of laboring soldiers with their duty done rang out over the silence as they went, spades over shoulders, back to their tents. There, they might have diced over captives, as the French had the night before, had not the majority been slain at the king’s command. As it was, they had fire, food and good cheer in plenty, and the pleasant hum of merry English chatter softened the graveyard edge to the cries of crows in the field. Neither sound was particularly agreeable with Montjoy’s mood and swiftly sending off the minor heralds to their well-deserved rest, he had retreated with mount and pack to the fringe where field met road to indulge in a quiet moment alone with his most faithful companion. His duty yet incomplete, he knew he could not tarry long, but the warm, steady presence of his horse calmed his fever, and with his forehead on her neck and his arms over the saddle, he could support himself tiredly on her strength, and speak his mind to her patient ear.

“Make ready your fleetest pace, ma chérie. We ride all night to Rouen, like crow, bearers of bad news.”

If she did not understand the letter of the language, she felt her master’s biding sorrow and lipped at his hands in question. With a sad smile, he tenderly pushed aside her ministrations, denying any presence of unseemly grief, yet undeterred, she explored his face and hair with greater urgency. Her muzzle was feathery to the touch and where she encountered tears mingling with the salt of sweat, she tried her best to console him, her tongue rough and wet. The sharp tang of dried blood on his face made her sneeze, and nudge at him insistently with distaste. Montjoy sighed as he dabbed ineffectually at the equine spit. “Away with you, finicky beast. Here is my share of the blood and sweat, from England’s hand no less. Now we will look the part when we ride into the city and the king will not disown us when we tell him lost are his ten thousand fine French knights… lost to English knives…” Jestingly, if only to conceal a sudden violent shudder, he pretended to daub the stain on her cheek and earned himself a loud snort of derision from the proud horse. “Have it your way then, when you are run out of town for being a liar and a cheat I shall not help you.” Deviously and without warning the palfrey sidestepped away, dragging the saddle out of the herald’s grip and causing him to stumble gracelessly forwards. Soft equine laughter mocked him and in turn he loudly berated her cruelty.

Self-consciously the herald examined his hands as he regained the reins; the lingering tremors and the pale pinched skin bearing traces of blood and earth beneath neat fingernails, the unspent memory of still-warm skin swiftly cooling, stiffening into the final impenetrability of death in his hands. He clenched his fists to banish the unwanted recollections, and a rare hint of weariness crept into his voice. “Tomorrow, I promise, you will have your warm stable and your fine fodder but tonight— tonight, I need you to follow the path, quick and true.” He made one last half-hearted attempt to straighten his clothes, as befitting the king’s own herald, but his gaze was fixed on the shrouded battlefield. “Tonight I need you to outrun the nightmares and the ghouls, outrun the shadows of death chasing our heels.” Almost a shadow herself, in the fading light, she held solemnly still and for a brief moment, before he shook himself out of his stupor, mount and rider shared a long last silence for the fallen. _This wintry night, alone in the woods, superstition and fear will be our shadows, our terrors._

As he made to mount, one foot in the stirrup, a familiar voice in unfamiliar good humor stopped him short. “Now I know how French heralds make such good time.” Montjoy swept surprise and chagrin from his face with all the speed of an experienced diplomat as he whipped around to see the English king approaching from the field, an unprepossessing figure wrapped in shapeless woolcloth held by a tattered belt of fraying rope, as miserable an ensemble as any itinerant beggar could boast, except for the fine leather boots that gleamed through the robe’s ragged hem. As Henry pushed back the hood of his cloak, revealing a wicked smile, Montjoy concealed an urge to give his mount the signal that would launch her into a sprint. Instead, he removed his boot from the strap with an internal sigh. “They do not waste a single moment of the day in feckless repose,” said Henry, “And they charm speed from their mounts with all the sweetness of a lover.” The herald did not know any rules of proper conduct that would rightly address the curiosity of a king in peasant costume, and out of sorts, he sketched a bow. Surreptitiously, with a grin so sly as to border on complicity, Henry waved away the formalities, theatrically casting his eyes around their deserted corner of the battlefield.

 _It is suddenly dreadfully clear. The kings were mad on both sides of the channel. And one more unpredictable than the other._ Montjoy reflected dismally on his lot. _There is no end to the perversities of this day._

 _“_ Do not give me away, herald,” said Henry, “If you attract the bandits and the scavengers, we may yet have to fight for our lives.” The herald shivered as he realized the king had followed him, silently and successfully, across the lonely battlefield. Fatigue had taken the edge off his customary caution and carried along in its meandering wake his wit and his senses, leaving him stranded in a murky pit of dim self-absorption. But he could tell Henry was enjoying himself, even through a clinging haze of weariness, as if a great weight had been lifted from the royal shoulders. The dead since put to rest with due honor, the king’s troubles must have gone to ground with them for he had shed the afternoon’s dark cloak of sorrow and without the melancholic set of his shoulders, England was his age again, young, handsome and engaging, the essence of the wild stories of his youth. Montjoy could not decide which aspect was more fearsome. “I will strive not to,” he promised, “Else I shall be forced to defend your majesty with this baton.” The king considered the proffered weapon with mock seriousness, but an unfettered grin broke out and marred the pretense as he shook his head in sad condemnation. “That is an exceedingly poor weapon, Montjoy. Surely even heralds arm themselves when travelling through the country?” The herald patted the neck of his mount, and she whickered brightly in response, evoking a small sideways smile. “It is enough for me that my horse is brave and fast. She is my protection against the unfriendly road.”

The king drew closer then, as curious as any ardent equestrian of a mount’s supposed prowess. At first glance, the horse’s plain coloring had obscured its finer traits from his attention. But the unseen tension building in the herald at his approach caused her to stamp a hoof and shift dangerously in warning, halting the king mid-step with a menacing snort. “Protection indeed,” he said with a wry smile. Swiftly, Montjoy turned to soothe his mount, the practiced movement of his hands and the scattered syllables rising obliquely from his smooth whispered French laying their indistinct sensuality upon the king, whose frank appraising gaze behind Montjoy’s back was his most glowing benediction of the herald’s consummate skill as a horseman. Thus placated, the mare haughtily allowed the king to place a hand on her head and consider her bearing. To Henry’s surprise, he found she was indeed as fine as any of his hunters, replete in speed and stamina, with the elegant stature of the palfrey and the bright intelligence behind her eyes to navigate a path. An apt if extravagantly expensive horse for a herald, and equally, a sign of his standing at the French court. “She is certainly of royal stock,” he said with some astonishment, drawing forth a warm smile and nod from the herald as a bittersweet memory swept into view, clouding his gaze. He said in a faraway voice, “She was a gift from my liege, a true scion of the royal stables. They had thought they could make nothing of her pride, her wildness.” The herald’s indulgent, adoring timbre gave the lie to his criticism.

The king was close enough now that Montjoy could make out the rough weave of his disguise even in the fading light, through gaps in which there were glimpses of richer materials as the king leaned in conspiratorially, his demeanor abruptly serious, his blue eyes grim. At such intimate proximity, Montjoy felt sheepishly afraid of being accosted again, yet Henry was nothing but genuinely concerned. “Is your mount all you have, Montjoy?” he asked, frowning. The herald replied with a tinge of amusement, as if he could not imagine what else the king anticipated him to possess. “Yes, your majesty,” he said, “Alas, God did not make me for the sword as well, only the horse.” This answer did not please nor satisfy the English king. “She will not be enough,” he said with devastating certainty, raising hairs on the back of the herald’s neck. Had the king heard his worried whisper about nightmares at his heels? He did not want such fever-fueled terrors pursing him into the dark and lonely woods, no matter how many times he had taken the path before nor however rational a man he had thought he was, and sent his gaze away into the field, seeking the comfort of the distant dancing firelight like fallen stars, familiar signs of man’s presence. “Please, your majesty, do not jest so.” _There are things enough in this world of which we do not know or understand._

“You are tired, herald,” Henry declared. “You look like a man who has not slept for days.” The truth of it hurt, the burden of fatigue thrust upon him like a knife wound, surfing through his mind in a sudden dull roar so deafening he could only stare speechlessly in answer. “Now you ride alone through dark and dangerous woods,” the king reached forward to grasp the herald’s arm, desperation in his manner though the night was serenely calm, and the herald bore his grip with only the slightest grimace of unease. The familiarity had not been entirely unexpected, but it was no less damning. “Rest the night, Montjoy,” Henry said, “and tomorrow I will give you an escort to keep you safe.” Back stiff and fingers clenched, the herald set his face with formality and threw back up the curtain walls of state the king had willingly abandoned; all that still contained his painfully seething emotions.

“Your majesty, if you require me to accompany an English ambassador to the court, I am at your service. But the news of Agincourt cannot tarry for the dawn.”

Henry pressed forward as he spoke, pressing hard against those unseen barriers, his corporeal presence defying their invisible sparks, “Listen to me Montjoy, I do not speak of phantasms,” his sincerity was a sword, piercing Montjoy’s guard, “I speak of men who will murder you in cold blood while you are slow with fatigue.” The herald suppressed a shiver that began in his gut and travelled leisurely up his spine to root in the back of his neck, lingering there without relief. He shook his head once, sharply, to wake his mind from its wide-eyed slumber, and governed his aspect with ruthless precision. “Your majesty,” he said, “what men would lie in wait for a poor herald? They shall take nothing from my body but this tabard. I beg you, give me leave to ride.”  

“You, herald of kings,” said Henry in an undertone, “think that you carry nothing of value?”

Montjoy held his breath, one hand on the reins as he nervously held his mount closer by his side, more certain in her presence and yet more fearful for she was the one good thing he possessed that was also irreplaceable. The twitching tension that engulfed him showed only at the bare periphery, the tips of his fingers where they were pale from holding on to the straps a little too tight, where the skin was rough and worn from pulling barehanded at the unyielding stiffness of corpses in the dry winter sun. The corners of his eyes where terse self-control stretched too thinly over jangling nerves had writ their fine tracery before its time. In the gentle gloom he was a shrilly humming statue at a pitch too high for human ears, whose resonance the king evoked with only his damning presence, threatening to shake him all to pieces. Distant fluttering crows rendered only half-glimpsed flickering shadows in the twilight, accompanied by the stuttered sound of beating wings as if to follow the urgent staccato of his heart. Unperturbed, his mount flicked her ears and tail, anxious to be gone.

“I—“ He hesitated, and plunged on. “Be that as it may, I will ride tonight.”

“Montjoy...” The king folded his arms.

“I must ride,” he said. He knew. “Else renounce my office. Else forswear my bond. No danger in yonder woods is worth as much. Humbly, I ask again, Highness, for your permission.”

Henry sighed, one hand on his brow in troubled deliberation. His resigned expression suggested he had not been in the least surprised by this outcome, yet though expecting it, resented it wholly. “Very well, you have it,” he said, “though I shall ask this of you.” He extracted three letters from beneath his disguise. “As well as any other, you know our mind. We shall tomorrow return to England, and for now, I will send no Englishman to freshly compound my cousin’s anguish. Instead, deliver these letters in my name. They are as good as my word.”

“I understand, your majesty. I shall convey them as such.”

“Montjoy,” Henry said, gripping the herald’s hand urgently as he accepted the messages. “There may be in these letters notions or demands that their readers dislike— that they shall resent—“ Worry simmered in his voice, laced with strange concern and stranger sorrow. It had no source that Montjoy could see and spoke in a language he did not dare to study carefully. “Take care. You are no English herald, and have no protection from your own lords.”

The herald broke out in uncontrollable laughter, fierce and genuine and tinged with the slightest fractured edge of hysteria, shocking Henry into gripping his arm, as the tides of amusement shook him with unexpected force. Only with difficulty did he recover himself, falling back to a wry and bitter slice of a smile. “If your majesty sends no tennis balls,” he said “I shall not worry much. We French are not beggared of our honor just yet.”

Stung by his indirect criticism, falling like grey winter rain on both sides of the channel, the king did not know to frown or to smile. As Montjoy turned to store the letters in his saddlebag, the king asked tentatively, agonized, like a child exploring a loose tooth, “Why did you hold those women back, herald? Why did you bear them down like enemies?” _Because you carried the dead across the battlefield. Because with your hands full any one of them could have slipped a dagger into your heart, or your eye, before you even knew._ Caught in a stricken look, the herald leaned momentarily against his horse, and she looked up from the ground to nibble his shoulder. “Because in France it is death to touch the person of the king.” When he raised his head, his clear and luminous gaze told Henry all he needed to know about the words behind the words.

If the king seemed slightly disappointed, or his bright smile of understanding more preoccupied than usual, the herald chose to ignore it. His mount rubbed her nose soothingly against his back, giving him an excuse to pick distractedly at her tack. Moments later, he turned around to the alarming sight of the king stripping off his disguise, revealing beneath the rough cloth a chainmail shirt of impeccable quality. As he stared in unconcealed horror, Henry shrugged the armor over his shoulders with practiced ease, and held it out, shining metal pooled over his arm like legendary quicksilver. Clad in only his crimson shirt, loose, smooth and flowing, its edges glinting with silver and gold and its mouth open at the neck, revealing pale unarmored skin, the king was regal indifference, his bearing as sure and unwavering as if he were not on the littered battlefield of France but in his princely chambers. Montjoy knew he was staring, and yet could not help it, his face stiff with the observation of madness. “Your majesty, what—” he managed, at once distracted and overwhelmed. “Take this, Montjoy,” Henry said, “to keep you safe.” The herald took a step back, then another, his hands held up in a warding gesture. “Your majesty’s armor—“ The herald observed the king’s brow crease with impatience and the corner of his mouth turn down.

“I will not have you dead, Montjoy. You are brave, your horse is fine, but those will not stop an arrow in the night.”

For the second time that day, Montjoy felt the palpable warmth of the king’s goodwill, washing up against his ungrateful soul, which cringed at its touch and cried out as if scalded. From the iron in Henry’s voice and stare he knew the king would not relent, nor give him leave, till he had taken the metal, heavy with all sorts of bonds and covenants as one should not form with an enemy monarch. _Father, you have said, where kings bribe bishops and dine knights, heralds must expect no hospitality, only hostility._

“Take it. You will need it.”

 _You have said, heralds walk a fine line with their freedom, freedom gotten only so long as it is given, not something that can be taken or demanded, sword in hand, like a knight’s honor._ Finally, Henry gave his command, calm, frank and entirely unyielding.

“With my letters in hand, you will accept this protection, or you will not leave my sight.”

Reluctantly, he bowed his head to the king, who directed him to don the armor beneath his tabard. Its unaccustomed weight sat heavily on his shoulders; an accusatory burden of betrayal. Not one French lord had thought to ask him to go armored, though he had ridden with them into the field, nor had he given it a moment’s thought himself. _But, Father, you have said nothing about this. What is this?_

The royal hands were quick and expert, adjusting the shirt around him like a common squire’s touch, but with uncommon care. Montjoy felt keenly aware of each casual brush of his fingers, thoroughly lacking in formality or distance, and colored with a proprietary air. _Absurdly does it feel like he owns me now, my life held in his hands, and how strangely pleased with that thought he seems. Look, he grins._

Grimly, Montjoy reflected that if the Duke of Exeter should suddenly step out from the shadows and witness the scene, his life would be that instant forfeit to his fearsome mace. And indeed, he might just willingly go under it, to be free from the incessant crawling feeling that his carefully constructed world was slowly crumbling all around him. Finally, the king was pleased with the result, and showed it with a wide smile. The armor hidden would be far more useful than any arms, and its distinction was in its rare weightlessness, each link so finely made as to seem like woven cloth, and as unconstricting. “A fine fit,” said Henry, “I truly hope you shall have no need of it.” Montjoy sank to one knee, his head bowed in reverence, one hand on his heart, holding it back, a wild thing thrashing at its fleshy cage. “I thank your majesty, though mine is an unworthy life for thy troubles.” Henry affectionately raised him from the ground, and half in jest, half in sincerity, said, “If the Lord Constable could trouble to send thee again for ransom, while his knights bay like hounds for English blood, then this is no trouble for me at all.” _See, your folly laid bare, seeded by this treacherous heart. Oh God, away with it— it does me nothing but wrong._  Montjoy looked away, and Henry laughed cheerfully at his consternation. With an unspoken question, at the king’s short nod, he mounted his horse, as just he spurred her on, the king added one last, soft enjoinder. “Ride safe,” Henry said, “Stay awake.”

It sounded eerily to him like the deer breeder’s last words as he lets out his stock for the hunt, lingering and sorrowful and timed precisely so he could not reply, his mount surging ahead with her customary vigor. That cloaked figure so perplexing receded quickly into the distance, a last image saved on the inside of his eyelids in inverted color before the darkness of the forest path swallowed him whole. Cooled by the night wind, cocooned in a endless quiet moment, his head down and his body relaxing into the familiar, powerful rhythm of the ride, he could forget that nameless dangers swarmed just beyond the edge of his vision, where they bided their time, achingly. He could forget the shades whose death masks he had so dutifully pored over, whose every slash and every stain he had examined for the sake of name and honor, so that each pale corpse became part of a blurring corpse-thing lodged in his brain, summoned to the forefront by the terrors of the pitch black darkness, their twisted hands reaching out for him, their malevolence so strong he was beset by desperate urge to cry innocence. He could almost forget the fear in the king’s eyes, his last and lingering warning, but the king’s touch, the king’s gentle hands and warm body, these he stumbled upon again and again even as he went out of his way to avoid them, till he was near breathless with frustration.

Absent the clashing cacophony of war, hidden the mounting names of the dead, his conscience broke through the grey fog of fatigue to find strident mental voice. _With his every touch, the man makes you forget who he is. England’s king. England’s conqueror. How profoundly useless is a herald heartsick and sore confused._ In his mind he protested half-heartedly. _Was the young English king such a fearsome actor? His embrace had seemed genuine, full of warmth, his amusement sincere, his parting words heartfelt and emotional._ Mired in confusion, memories blurred and conflicting, he could only be sure of his own personal weakness. He could feel it hounding at him with the rhythm of his own heartbeat. Even before the battle, he had revealed it for sake of admiration, and then, even weaker after, had allowed himself to be affected by the slaughter. _Undone by fatigue. How wretched and shameful. The man had fought for hours hand to hand, and yet he handles me as efficiently as a man would any hooded hawk or lolling terrier. A fearsome man for an enemy, and even more fearsome a king…_

The herald was still brooding fitfully when sleep, in its subtle way, overtook him. His mount slowed to an even, ground-eating gait as his breathing deepened and his body settled limply into its seat. It was in this familiar harmony that they travelled without stopping, as the moon rose to illuminate quiet forests, and the herald slept.

*

The king was greeted by his uncle and brothers when he entered the tent, quickly shedding the last vestiges of his disguise. It was clear they had been waiting in apprehension since he had left, and barely a man had moved, or his pose altered. Henry laughed merrily at their disapproving frowns. “Now what is the matter, my dear lords?” he said, “The day is ours, God is with us, and England awaits. What more could an Englishman ask for?” Exeter did not share his amusement in the slightest, and made it clear as he said, “Your majesty, I do not understand your course of action. We have English heralds aplenty, and Dukes and Earls and countless knights besides, all well-suited to voice your claims in full, now that the chivalry of France decorates the field. Why rely on a lone French herald to get your message through? You know the woods are crawling with Burgundian spies who will stop his tongue dead.” Henry winced at his matter of fact tone. “I would not underestimate this herald so soon, Uncle. He rode through the thick of the battle, unarmored, banner in hand, and both mount and rider came out unscathed.” The king sat casually upon a nearby trunk, inspecting with curiosity the reactions of his closest advisors. “By the by,” he said, “I have given him my coat of mail. It will preserve his life until he reaches Rouen.” His kinsmen reacted with astonishment, and swiftly on its heels, barely stifled outrage. It was Bedford who finally spoke, his plangent voice sardonic.

“A handsome gift for any enemy, let alone a herald.”

“You will believe me when I tell you that the Valois King of Arms is an honest man, duty-bound and skilled at his profession. I could have given him armor for his horse, or an escort of twenty soldiers. As it is, his speed and weak appearance will be his greatest asset, luring any ambushers into overconfidence.”

“Send an English messenger along another path,” said Exeter, “it does not hurt us to be prudent.”

The king smiled as he replied, a patient tutor before scornful students. “Another herald is not needed. This day’s report may arrive at Rouen tomorrow, or in a week, that matters not to us Englishmen. No, I gave Montjoy three letters to deliver, in my hand.”

“You entrust your written word to a Frenchman,” said Gloucester, uncomprehending.

“My brother, it is precisely that Frenchman I need to carry my letters. He is the fulcrum upon which I will smash apart their divided throne. France is not yet done, they still have men to do battle with, but let the cracks in their truce be tested a single moment and their fragile accord will crumble all to pieces. If you, dear brother, were to ride in under the banner of St. George, by God they would move in the opposite direction just to spite us.”

“So we support one side against the other. But which side?”

“We support both sides, to the detriment of both. One side will give us our birthright, and we will save English lives for it. Go to your deserved rest. We decamp for Calais on the morrow. It is a day’s hard ride to Rouen. Maybe twice that to Dijon, but my dear cousin will need all the time he can get if he is to resist the Burgundians.”

“If this hapless herald makes it through the night,” Exeter snorted, turning away.

Henry bid them a pleasant good night as they filed obediently from the tent. In the resulting solitude, he could finally relax, and fidget, and fret openly. For all his best-laid plans, his good intentions, his heart was breaking to send a man he liked and trusted into the waiting jaws of death, yet the herald had resisted his friendship, his protection, with all the stubborn fearlessness of the dutiful enemy, just as Henry had anticipated. _God in Heaven, protect him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	3. Assassins in the Wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enemies from an unexpected quarter turn his thoughts back to old friends across the border.

The herald woke all at once, to tension and fear, his body a taut mess. All his nerves, wound and aching from sleeping on horseback, cried out in alarm. There was a fearsome atmosphere on the path, its light strained out like watercolors roughly smudged from deep verdigris shadow beneath the trees to thin silver moonlight. That eerie sensation of being watched, lurking at the core of man’s animal origins and never wrong, crept up his spine, to linger, haunting, at the back of his neck. Squinting in twilight, he could make out nothing suspicious, nothing that merited panic, the path unwinding long and lonely to both sides of him, but the silence itself was unusually deafening. The sinister words of the England’s king leapt unbidden into his mind, and now thoroughly spooked, he leaned into the wind, using his legs to silently urge his mount forward, faster.

The decision saved his life. A bolt lanced out soundlessly from the forest, scraping past the back of his neck close enough to cut the skin, so fast that for heartbeats after he did not register the pain, only a wet trickling down his back. Another narrowly missed the hindquarters of his horse. He heard it bite deep into a tree trunk. Two more swept by in as many breaths, flashing in the moonlight, too fast for his eye to follow, but his mount, graceful, life-saving, ran on like one possessed. She shuddered as another bolt grazed across her neck, its steel fingers trailing blood, and gathered speed to herself in fierce thundering percussion. His meagre universe had condensed to the span of hoofbeat and sharply whispered breath, the dark churning loam, its earthy scent shot with fresh iron tang, and overhead, the clouded sky betraying no starlit link to earthly time and place. As if travelling through thick sand, glittering in its wake, he watched the next shot exit the trees from the right, and had a single endless moment to realize he was being ambushed, the attackers spaced out along the path in a deadly crossbow gauntlet, before it slammed into his right shoulder, tearing through the armor like so much silk and lodging fast against bone. It was a miracle he did not fall. A sharp cry escaped him, and he saw them moving through the trees, keen with their prospective success, brief moonlight gleaming off a vicious metal tipped crossbow, and realized from the tightness in his chest that he had been holding his breath. Then, quick and rough scoring jerked him as two bolts dragged past his body and screamed shrill metal cries when the armor denied them. Still the pain did not come, but his right hand was weak, useless. Using his left, he jerked the reins roughly to one side and clattered off the path into the undergrowth, the wind of passing bolts whistling through the space where he had been.

They were there, in the closeness of the shadows and the shrubs, maybe eleven of them. Eleven shots fired in the space of heaving seconds, far too many to waylay a single foe. _Had they anticipated an escort?_ He saw them as he crashed by their hiding places, scattering on foot like insects in the sun, their faces masked by black cloth and their weapons slung across their backs. Flickering shafts of dim luminescence flanked in deepening shadow seemed to illuminate their actions like a feat of magical teleportation, now here, now there, and now gone. Their weapons were useless after a single shot, far too slow to reload, and without mounts to chase they retreated silently into darker places. One last assassin stood openly by the path ahead, his weapon still loaded. In a heartbeat, the herald would ride past him, and into the clear grey night. Montjoy watched the dark figure lead his crashing, clumsy path with the gleaming tip of his weapon, patiently, and for a single fearsome second held the calm gaze of the killer beyond the trees. And knew him, deeply. He was waiting for an open shot, and in a single moment he would have it. Through the rends in his tabard, bright, rich armor shone, its shining visage in narrow glimmering slices, attracting the curious eye. A moment later, he thought he heard the man fire, the deadened clunk of metal against wood. Then, he was through the thick of it, and alone in the woods, and alive.  

It was only much later, when the adrenaline had faded and he had ascertained that he was not dead, that excruciating pain took his breath away, and grinding agony flared expansively at every bump in the brush, every swipe of a branch. Questing fingers found another bolt fixed in his lower back, whose progress blunted through the metal hide had somehow failed to kill him. Another had scored a path down his horse’s shoulder, the torn flesh shearing with every stride. More tears in tabard and tunic attested to the armor’s efficacy; without it flesh and skin would have shredded gaudily open. Anticipating his weakness, the assassins had used wide, bladed bolts, the better for slicing through unarmored foes, but their deadly effectiveness had been undone by unexpected mail. Montjoy drew a numbing breath, he had survived yet, and traveling alone as he did, swift and silent, no other had come to harm.

Mount and rider dripped steadily with blood. The woods all around them menaced him with every shadow; he was constantly fearful; like a child unreasonably afraid of the dark, of slavering red-eyed wolves that hunted wounded prey. His calmness was his mount, his surety, his fortress, for she still ran strongly and faithfully despite her gashes. England’s king turned prophet haunted his every thought. He could not relax, nor return to the path for fear of further ambush, nor stop to dress his wounds properly. It was a caricature in self-torture as he thrashed through the undergrowth, disoriented with pain and simply praying he had not been turned around in the confusion. The path swam in and out of sight in the distance, illuminated with a silver light, a deathly mirage beckoning. He would not fall for it. A strong iron tang suffused his senses, the stench of blood and sweat and wetly rusting armor mingling with the earthy fastness of the forest. 

It was several minutes of hard riding before he shook off the panic and regained some form of clarity in the absence of further ambush. Even as his right hand trembled and shook and cast about, slick with slender crimson streams, he fumbled through the contents of his bag, wearily helpless as he let fall from shuddering fingers rations and implements of writing and the suddenly frustrating miscellany of travel until a roll of bandages surfaced. A sudden jolt forced a breathless cry through clenched teeth. Each action required more and more willpower, perversely so, as the red mist crowded in and jostled like a teeming mob for space in his mind, one by one eclipsing other thoughts. Gripping one end of the cloth in his teeth, he wound the rest firmly around his shoulder, securing shaft, joint and flesh together and tying it off with breathless, white-knuckled concentration. In his mind he counted the beats of the hooves in his head, one-two, three-four, like a heart’s rhythm. _Each step one closer, each step one more living, one more bearing such dark tidings it was only fitting each step should ring with such livid acid pain, only fitting that the messenger should bear the cost of bringing._ The second bolt had the same, if sloppier, treatment. Both wounds continued to bleed long and slow through the bandages, into his shirt and down the saddle, painting his mount in warlike streaks and running away with his life.

It was all he could do to keep his hands wrapped around her. The rest of the night passed in the grip of fear and fever. If the pain had any advantage, it was to keep him conscious and mounted, but his mind burned in a mounting state of delirium and in that haze time stretched without passing. Wan light sneaked upon him, beginning only as a subtle lightening of shadows. He marked the dawn with weak, blinking eyes, the sun rising dim and cold, its position showing the gaps between the trees, then as abruptly as a fissure, he was through the forest and out onto the fields about the city, its buildings rising in the distance, no less a welcome sight than a vision of God’s heavenly kingdom. The fields were bathed in a beautiful, golden light, where assassins had no place to hide and peasants scolded him as he swept past them rudely, hooves churning the ground, until they saw the gruesome trail of blood and fell silent. Here his horse could fly, the moments counting by long strides. Everything narrowed down to a single point, fixed upon the person of the king in the distance, even as the herald’s vision blurred he felt he could see his monarch clearly before him, beckoning him to approach, and behind him, Henry of England, hooded, his face in shadow, or was it a stranger instead? _Henry England is a stranger, is he not?_

Now he saw the gates moving swiftly past him, and now he was flanked by clattering, horrified guards, astonished by the sight of an arrow-stuck and gory herald. Their voices were a distant buzz and their hands tried to take hold of him though he fended them off weakly… _couldn’t they see the king was right before them?_ He barely perceived their faces. They took on monstrous aspects, half-remembered poorly rendered images from monkish manuscripts, all colorful and pious wrath and no form. Townspeople gathered from all sides; some reaching out to brush his horse as he went by, then inspecting their red-stained fingers, and raising their voices. The buzzing grew louder, with it came a dense fog to swathe his eyes. He had a sensation of falling, as clear and refreshing as a mouthful of cold spring water, and thought, lastly before oblivion, how inconceivable it was, after all that, he should fall off his dependable horse.

*

 _I remember it was gloomy that day, there had been grey cloud cover all morning and a fusty dampness in the air threatening rain._ Spying the English herald waiting at the end of the path, Montjoy hailed him affectionately as he urged his mount forward. It was an ongoing mystery how the Englishman never failed to anticipate his arrival, however diligently he concealed his movements while on English soil. Then again, every tactic he employed had been learnt verbatim from the man before him. The English herald had the sturdy build of a spearman, and his rich brown hair and beard belied his age. Laugh lines crinkled the corners of his eyes, his eyebrows arched, bright color touched his cheeks; he was an image of constant amusement, and perilous to those who failed to notice the sharpened wit behind his warm grey eyes. “John, my friend,” he said, as he drew nearer. “Montjoy King of Arms”, the Englishman replied with a wry grin.

 _Was it so long ago our stations were reversed, and I the one stiff with unnecessary, unheeded formality?_ As they rode together Montjoy eyed the other herald surreptitiously. “I am glad to see you are in good health.” Under the auspices of the college of legates, they had travelled England and France together in younger, more carefree days, ostensibly as master and apprentice, in truth endlessly bickering and in conflict. To the quiet, less-than-social youth with a conscientious attention to duty, under the watchful eye of an expectant father, the boisterous Englishman had been an onerous pairing, a nuisance both irritatingly loud and ethically incorrigible. Undaunted by his French assistant’s chilly demeanor, the Englishman had given all of what he knew with warmth and generosity, to be the foundation upon which the younger herald built his reputation. And in time, that indefatigable English cheer had proven irresistible. “The Marcher lords build up and up and yet no man has figured out how to keep out the drafts.”

Their mounts fell readily in step with each other, the English horse welcoming his counterpart with a soft whicker. Though Montjoy’s mare regarded the other haughtily, her attitude serene and unruffled, he could feel her sway companionably to the other’s gait, and they advanced in smooth harmony. “You mean to say your fine services do not merit a curtain or two?” Montjoy inquired disbelieving. “Oh yes, put us to shame, the richness of the French court, every herald with his grand curtained room and fireplace. His servant to draw up the coals and make his bed.” The Lancaster herald had since been assigned to the wild Welsh frontier, and Montjoy thought he heard something of the longing for the sweet, solemn byways of a lingering southern French summer in his voice. “I will put a good word in for you with my liege,” he said, “Though the role of herald is rather capably filled,  he may yet accept your services as bed-maker instead.”

“Now isn’t that a saucy rumor, and I thought such services only acquired in England. But of course, it is only fitting I extend the same favor to you.” He considered the French herald with stern severity from head to toe, one sturdy hand held up in fair resemblance of a painter’s pose. “But you are just too thin… too tall… too utterly French! The king will never like you, for he trades in strong, stout and handsomely knightly.” Normally sedate, Montjoy dissolved into quiet chuckles, waving away the words lightly as if distancing himself from some awful horror. He never failed to lose such verbal duels, each statement escalating towards an invariably unbearably rude English crudity, from which there was no hope of recovery. “What, giving up so soon? Where have you been bent over, where they have so rigorously crammed that stick back up your arse?” The Englishman moaned dramatically, “All my hard work, undone…”

The steeply plunging language made Montjoy purse his lips mockingly. “With my Lords and Ladies of course, _doing my duty_. But I see the idle tavern and the docks is where you’ve been hard at work, relearning that pedestrian country slang.”  
“Slander, calumny and defamation!” shouted John, “These are the very words of my king and master.”  
“Defamation indeed,” said Montjoy calmly, “what low regard Englishmen have for their young king, to put such words in his mouth. And I had thought the stories nasty enough.”

Now the Englishman’s falsetto rage gave way to a wide and genuine grin, toothy as any tiger’s. “On the contrary, we would not love him otherwise. But the king will convince you of his mettle soon enough, he is much changed from when you last knew him, a veritable miracle of coronation. And I see you’ve brought a _present_ with you.”

“As you well know,” Montjoy sighed, “a jest of the Dauphin’s… and not a kind one. After all, _he_ does not have to ridicule the wild king and his bloodthirsty lords to their faces.”  
“Fear not, King of Arms. Henry England is nothing if not honorable. But there will be consequences to your Dauphin’s jest… it is no idle gesture when the king has armed for war.”  
“And he means to pursue it?”  
“You will find my liege is a _lion_ , Montjoy, through and through.”

They had reached the gates of the castle and dismounted in the yard. Boys came running up to grasp their bridles. The Englishman clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, “I will let the king know you have arrived. Wait in the entrance hall before the throne room.”  
“Shall I see you after?”  
“Aye, and I shall get you a strong drink, and then, I will laugh at how promptly Henry put your Dauphin to shame.”

*

When he came to again, he jerked upright so fast the doctor administering to him fell backwards in shock, and clutched in the nightmare of the ambush the herald scrabbled about briefly, desperately, for his reins, his mind registering only the single imperative to turn his horse from danger. It was endless seconds before the dark dream receded into benign misty memory, and the nature of his surroundings came to focus in his mind. It was not the dark woods. The windows of the room were large, arched and bright with the golden glow of afternoon. He breathed deeply to calm himself. The woods were behind him. There were crisp white sheets on the bed, soaked in blood. The doctor stood over him, saying something. He had survived. The thought was a crystal chime, ringing a true and indescribably beautiful note. The danger was over.

Everything real intruded at once, rudely shattering his calm. He heard the doctor exhorting him to lie down, to avoid re-opening his wounds. Tightly wrapped bandages restrained him everywhere. A steady hand applying pressure on his shoulder, another behind his back, carefully laying him down. He felt the strength of the madness drain away, leaving him a damaged, hollow shell to be filled from two punctures with molten agony. The pain was so strong, so constant, he found it hard to see clearly. And in the distance, hallucination or not, a vision of the king… his king, almost in tears he cried out, reaching for that image, that idea, with his left hand, and was rewarded by the monarch’s approach. His distant gaze was edged by the slightest of frowns, a removed concern in his eyes, and a thin-lipped downturn to his mouth. He had never been so glad for the sight of his mad king. He fumbled weakly but intently with his hands, tried to rise and failing, tried to speak, but could not. Mortified, he mouthed fevered apologies, his hand now grasping the bedclothes, now letting it go, but the king only patted his arm distractedly, and spoke softly with the doctor as he fell back into consuming darkness.

*

 _I remember the halls were not so bright as this, the English castle dark and dank and smoky like the deepest French dungeon, its every shadow menacing._ The English herald waited until they were out of earshot of the hall, and burst into uproarious laughter. He was soon struggling for breath, one hand braced against the damp stone wall, the other clutching the herald’s sleeve for support. Montjoy was far from amused, his face grim in the flickering firelight.

“You should have seen your face!” John cried with glee, “And that nervous glance, oh fresh from an apprentice, Montjoy King of Arms. Even you, with your fine reputation, cannot withstand Henry’s wrath.”  
“I was half-afraid he would— He was in a fine rage.” He was still shaken, still wondering.  
“The king in all his glory I should say,” John crowed, “Magnificent no? Make sure you take the whole of that blistering ire back with you.”  
“That was a declaration of war!” Montjoy leveled a harsh condemning gaze onto his friend. “Many will die. And you, Lancaster Herald, are amused.”

His mordant line seemed to reel the Englishman’s good humor in, like a fire dampened but not doused, exuding a persistent humid heat. In the smoke-charged gloom, his face turned half to shadow like some strange nightmarish jester. “You know and I know there will always be war,” he said, shrugging, “The nobles fight, the peasants suffer, but we poor heralds make a living out of all of it.” Seemingly disconcerted by his own fatalistic proclamation, and shaking it off his broad shoulders like so much  gentle snowfall, he said more lightly, “Unless, you have gone and found yourself someone to worry about? _No…_ tell me it cannot be! Dare I say… the bonds of marriage? Ah! Tyranny!”

“Now this is a strange line for you, my friend,” said Montjoy, confused, “Do I have that harrowed look of married men?” John placed one hand firmly to either side of the French herald, trapping him against the wall, a mischievous glint in his eye. ”Oh but you do! Alas, I am devastated.” Montjoy returned a wan smile. He was no stranger to his friend’s wide, wicked grin, and pushed half-heartedly against his blockade. “You have forgotten me so fast,” the Englishman lamented in a whisper, “those many pleasant days and nights now lost.”  
”You speak of the ancient past,” Montjoy retorted, “now we are respectable, and duty bound, with no time for idle games.” Retreating warily, he found his back to the cool, rough stone and the futile movement only enticed the English herald closer, till his mouth was at Montjoy’s ear, and his hands had crept in to bind his shoulders. Their tabards met, lion matching flower. “I find my old bones are more susceptible to draughts these days,” he sighed dramatically.

The sudden, hushed sweep of a cloak fluttering wide around the corner caused them to leap apart in fluid tandem. In a heartbeat, both heralds conjured up their innocence, a holy mantle blank and bright, but from the look the English king was wearing, having just turned the corner with Lord Scrope, it was clear he had seen something out of order. _He makes no noise as he walks, uncanny, like a ghost haunting his own castle._ They both bowed low as he advanced upon them. “I said convey him in safety,” he demanded, the thunder gathering in his aspect. “Absolutely, my liege,” John replied, “He is surely safe with me.” And England turned to him, skeptical and questioning. “We are old friends, your majesty,” Montjoy explained.

“I see.” There was a pause, as if he had more words prepared, and pondered over them, but at an impatient gesture from Scrope, they stalked off in silence, Henry reserving one last lingering suspicious glance, frank and piercing. The heralds released their aching breaths as he disappeared around the corner, and then they began to laugh, the Frenchman with a nervous silver edge, the Englishman rough and loud and without reserve. The stone walls rang with his laughter, causing Henry to turn his head as he caught just the slightest echo of it.

*

Later, conscious again, calmer, he could recall nothing after the impact of the first shot. It had been relegated to the stuff of screaming dreams, so violent he found he had been tied down to the bed and his head restrained. The doctor dramatically assured him how close to death he had come, how plentiful and vivid all the blood had been and how lucky he had been to have such fine armor, it had certainly saved his life. His horse had been royally treated, he was promised after an urgent question, bandaged and sequestered in the royal stables. And his name had spread like wildfire across town, he was warned, buoyed up in a swirling whirlwind of fierce rumor, fake news and terrible harbingers. It had been two days he lay in convalescence, and each moment of silence only served to fan false flames. His hoarse and tattered voice trembled with each breath, but equally each heartbeat needled him with an almost physical pain, each hour more and more urgent, like he was breathlessly racing a brightly burning candle, and it was swiftly burning down.

The afternoon dragging on, he insisted forcefully against the doctor’s protests that he would carry out his duties at once. He struggled out of bed, fending off futile obstruction with a sling on his right arm, and a cane in his left. New verticality took his breath away. Step after grimacing step down long carpeted corridors brought forth fresh iron-scented blood and a multitude of servants in his wake. They lurked like vampires at the edge of his vision, fidgeting with their fingers and fearful of blame for crimson carpet stains. He wondered if they would catch him if he fell. But he had not ridden through a trial of blood only to delay the report with weakness, and he shut out all doubt, all protest completely. The king had convened court to hear his herald, the Dauphin to his right in a fine purple jacket, the queen to his left with a delicate crown, their faces swimming in and out of focus. Clad in iron will, his voice did not tremble as he spoke softly of disobedience, shame and failure on the battlefield; the knights that broke ranks and charged headlong into the face of slaughter; the tireless, merciless English and their ruthless leonine leader. It was only when he spoke of the English archers and their onslaught of arrows like a metal rain that his voice took on a gentle quiver, and the high rushing whine rose again in his ears.  

Finally, now noticeably leaning and measuring each breath in full to curb the mounting nausea, he named each hostage taken and their various possibilities of ransom. The king was solemn as he learned that the Duke d’Orleans was well and truly captured. Then, all that was left to speak was the list of the dead in full, an endless stream of familiar names that begot pale faces in its wake. Where he had them, he presented the king bloody tokens, each one evidence so horrifyingly physical the specter of death drove the nobles one by one from the room. As he placed each one into the chamberlain’s palm, he noticed with some surprise how white his hand was, and how violently it was trembling, in spite of his best efforts. He clamped his arm around the cane to stop the tremor, but that only intensified the pain. He would remember reaching the end of the roster with an inaudible sigh of relief, but when he went to bow in conclusion, giddiness swarmed up and over him, and the darkness came on again.

*

 _I remember being surprised at how the forthcoming the English were, or maybe it was at how successfully I had trained the accent from my voice._ Montjoy was worried as he rode back to the stables, although he did not show it. He had spent the day investigating the English preparations for war openly taking place all around the town and keep, and drawn up grim conclusions. It was clear the young English king had begun stockpiling supplies almost as soon as he had taken the throne, his bloodlust so swift as to be shocking. In the warehouses, Montjoy could not have counted the number of bowstaves, piled up in massive stacks, and sack upon sack of goosefeathers neatly lined up in their countless rows; each under-quartermaster sweating blood and tears under the pressure to manage it all to the satisfaction of the king. Each one had fretted anxiously about the uncanny official supervision, and how their reports came back audited, edited, and signed in the king’s hand, with a polite and terrifying note advising them to correct their mistakes.

His horse chided him as he tugged too hard at a knot in her mane, her gaze level and accusatory. Absent mindedly he apologized, but she knew his mind was not on her, and turned her head away, affecting a stance of injured dignity. He was still trying to bring her round when the unmistakable _thunk_ of an arrow hitting a target drew him out of the stables in curiosity. He saw the king at the center of the training field, plainly dressed but his fair hair and royal demeanor unmistakable from a distance, expertly drawing back a longbow too roughly sculpted enough to be his own. Behind him, a servant held a stack of them, unstrung. Another to his left, the utensils of writing. And all about him, a group of military men, their strange, aproportional physiques marking them as expert bowmen, and their clothing marking them as commonplace. _He is testing the weapons._ Immediately the thought struck Montjoy as both true, and patently unbelievable. _The king is testing them?_ He drew nearer the field, reminded of the quartermasters’ complaints. Here was a king so invested in his war as to be unusually tireless in its preparation. _Was this a sign of things to come on the battlefield?_

At a certain point, he went too far, made himself too conspicuous, and the king, turning to speak, saw him standing by the field. Immediately, he waved for the herald to approach. At once Montjoy felt nauseous, uncertainty birthing in the strangeness, the otherness of the situation, the feeling’s strength heightening with each movement made heavy by the suspicious gazes of the Englishmen, and the watchful scrutiny of their warlike king. He bowed low in greeting, eyeing the bow held casually in the monarch’s right hand, and the long severe arrow in his left, fletched with grey feathers. _No tennis ball,_ “Your majesty.”    

“Valois Herald, without your tabard and your accent, you could almost pass for an Englishman.” A rebuke, wrapped in an insult and hidden in a compliment, the English king came at him with a mischievous half-smile, thin enough to evaporate with the dew in the noonday sun. The men gathering at his back belligerently did not seem to appreciate his meaning, but their regard was hostile nonetheless. “It is not meet for the stables, your majesty,” he explained. “Ah,” the king nodded, his smile growing wistful, “I only wish it was as easy for kings to step out of their crown.” He paused briefly to let the statement pass without comment, his gaze distant, and when he continued again his voice was cheerful. “Fortuitously, I require an honest opinion, and yours will suffice. My masters of archery would have me believe this bow shall pierce armor at 200 paces.” Abruptly he swung around, drew smoothly and fired true, the long string snapping audibly against his leather guard. Another _thunk_ sounded as the arrow smacked into the target down the field. Taken unawares by the sudden action, the herald felt the barest shudder darken his face. _Would the sound of an arrow striking human flesh sound so much different than that?_ The king turned an expectant gaze to him, and beckoned. “Come.”

They walked briskly down the lane. His attendants did not follow, perhaps at some signal from the man himself and heartbeats later they were alone. When they reached the target, Montjoy was horrified to find the arrow had gone straight through the painted sackcloth and its thick straw stuffing, as the previous two had done. Henry England tapped the straight pared spine with its meticulous grey fletchings, and pinned the herald with a gaze no less sharp, no less irresistible. “A fearsome weapon,” said the herald, “but I know naught of weapons. Perhaps it would be best to shoot at a suit of armor instead?”

The king’s mouth moved briefly with astonishment, and his gaze slid away as he considered it. Then, he turned back to the herald, inspecting him closer, reappraising him. “A fine suggestion,” he proclaimed. Clapping him firmly on the back, as if he were a loyal retainer providing good service, the king hurried back to his men, calling out orders as he went. It seemed to be a dismissal... of sorts. Montjoy immediately realized he was standing alone by a target, on an archery field, with several masters of the terrifying English longbow clearly in range and staring down at him. And far worse, the raking regard of the young lion in his splendor, in his own golden element and blazing with it, burning with the glare of it. He beat a quick retreat into the succor of the shadowed stables. It struck him as he took up brush again that the king, an exceptional archer in his own right, had deigned to consult directly with his men; had gathered them around him like cherished members of his nobility. _So strange, so other… so compelling._ Try as he might, he could not picture the Dauphin with bow in hand, let alone surrounded by foot soldiers.

*

He woke with a start, a sharp painful intake of breath… then a much slower release to calm himself. This time, the half-dream half-vision burned clearly in his mind. He frowned, w _hy now…_ that time and place rising to the top of the churning froth of images his unconscious mind was all at sea in. Rapidly, he looked around the infirmary in an attempt to ascertain the time, and nearly leaped from the bed when he saw the Dauphin sitting in a chair directly to his right, deep in contemplation. He held both the damaged armor and the broken bolts in his lap. Although the doctor had split the bolts to remove them from his body, Montjoy had furtively inspected the remains, as no doubt the prince had done, and his heart had fallen. The bolts were of French make, and there had been no English crossbowmen to speak of. He had pondered then the fine royal mail, each damaged link cleanly sheared by a terrible force, and felt bitterly cold. It was the work of sumptuously expensive crossbows.

The glassine fragile twilight meant he had been asleep for many hours. Quietly, he enquired, “Your highness?” The Dauphin came to attention all at once, focusing on the herald, his manner impatient, and his hands tightening unconsciously around the metal in his lap. “I have some questions for you, Montjoy, King of Arms.” He held up one specimen, curiously, in slender aristocratic fingers. “This is fine English mail. From where did you get it?” Montjoy answered instantly, “England gave it to me even as I rode from the battlefield. He spoke of ambush.”

“The English king anticipated,” mused the prince, “and he gave you this to protect your life.” A terse nod from the French herald, unable to read his tone of voice. “In god’s name, how did he know? And why would he care to give you this?” He threw the broken shirt to the foot of the bed, where it pooled, sumptuously silver, accusing by its guilt, and the herald beheld the prince’s surf of seething, purposeless anger break upon a spiny beach of doubt. “I could not guess at how he came to know,” Montjoy said, “Yet he did give me three letters, and charged me to deliver them, with the mail as assurance against the danger.” At once the Dauphin showed the edge of his anger. “Give me these letters.” Montjoy glanced to the trunk where the doctor had placed the things he had on him when he fell, his tattered tabard and shirt, blood soaked and cut away from his body during the surgery, and the messenger’s bag, with meager contents. He struggled to raise himself up. Following his gaze, the Dauphin waved a forceful hand at the herald’s movement and stooped to rifle through the bag himself, extracting three letters in turn, stained in spots with dried blood, but otherwise intact. The herald nodded when his prince shot a questioning look over. They were sealed with the right marks to be genuine. The first one bore the name of his father, the second his mother, and the third, John of Burgundy. This selection of letters seemed to perplex the prince, who tore them open and read them one by one. “Your highness,” Montjoy protested once, breathlessly, the sight of his grievous misconduct like a slit somewhere in his lungs, letting out air, but he could no more speak against his prince than he could step out of the window and fly. Instead he bore the heartache deep and silently, and struggled to remain coherent. The face of the Dauphin grew darker and darker as he read, and finally, reaching the end of the third, he crushed the thin paper in a tightly clenched fist, and questioned through gritted teeth. “What else did Harry England say?”

Confused, Montjoy repeated what he had informed the throne not hours before, “He said the English march to Calais, and then sail for England when they can.” “And he was sincere?”, demanded the Dauphin. “He was,” replied the herald. “Very well. Rise, you must convey my orders at once. Time is of the essence.” Montjoy brushed the fingers of his left hand to his bare head in deference. “At once, your highness.” Although the Dauphin considered him skeptically, his eyes lingering on the fresh blood yet staining the clean bandages around his shoulder, he did not challenge the herald’s honest gaze. “Remain here for now,” he said, “I will return to give you instructions. Make ready to ride out as soon as you can.” He glanced distastefully at the rust-colored flakes sticking to his fingers from touching the armor, and the letters, and absent-mindedly tried to rub them clean on his sleeves. “You may request a horse from my stables if necessary.” Without waiting for a reply, he rushed from the room. Montjoy allowed his head to fall tiredly back to the pillow.

It was four hours before the Dauphin returned, the clear sky just beginning to acquire that antique, well-worn light of the languid late night, dulling the senses to slumber. Montjoy had successfully pressed his body into service and levered himself out of bed. He now stood by the window and reveled in the fresh air, concealing just how much he was relying on the sill to keep himself upright. After delivering him new supplies and vigorously asserting to his stoic audience how dangerous it was for the herald to be moving at all, let alone riding out at any pace, the doctor had left complaining under his breath about death wishes. The peace of mind that the herald had sought was finally at hand, with its blessed clarity. He knew enough to know the accord was dead, the balance of power disrupted: the English king had seen it on the battlefield, and in the names on the list of the dead, each one an Armagnac power in his own right, and Montjoy himself had blithely confirmed it in the tent, without even realizing, his mind so blinded by the novelty of defeat and slaughter. His face was suitably grim when he turned to face his prince, his posture suitably steady when he bowed. The Dauphin wasted no time in issuing his orders.

“Ride to Paris at once, with all speed. This is of penultimate importance. Deliver my order: no prince of the blood is to be allowed to enter Paris at the head of an army. Further, tell the garrison to prepare for siege, they must remove the bridges and ferries into the city, and make ready food and supplies. Tell them I follow you with my father and my troops. And they must send a member of the garrison here, to confirm with me personally their arrangements. Stay a few days, long enough to make sure they comply with the orders and that the man leaves on times.”

He checked to see if the herald was listening.

“Then ride for Dijon, to meet the Duke where he is along the way. Jean _sans Peur_ will not deserve his reputation if he is not already on the move. Repeat my order at every town. And then, deliver it to the man’s face himself. Tell him disarm, disband, and stay home to mourn his fallen kin, for they do turn in their shallow graves. Recite him the lists of the dead, with his brothers’ names at the head.” The last sentence the Dauphin snarled instead of spoke, and threw the crumpled letter at the herald, who caught it uncertainly. “And why not, deliver him England’s letter as well. We shall see what he makes of it. Ride back with his words, and ensure Paris’ compliance along the way. Do you understand the tasks at hand?”

“I understand, your highness.”

Montjoy was thankful the Dauphin did not see him off. The true implications of his injuries sunk in as he struggled breathlessly and only on the fourth try managed to mount his patient horse. His face set like stone, he feared no further ambush now that the news was out. He was racing a more insidious foe: the steadily encroaching loss of consciousness, whose arrival was heralded by wet crimson streamers and threatened to delay his mission irrevocably. He rode out the southern gate at desperate speed, hands and arm already numb, heading east and south on the road to Paris. At the cost of all else, the throne must be protected. The throne would be served.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	4. Know Him as I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As news spreads, one man is on everyone’s mind.

He rode into the city drenched in sweat and sticky with blood, but buoyed up, like a golem, with the burning writ of purpose. The nausea had not left him nor the bleeding ceased nor the fever abated but he no longer saw the blackness all around his eyes, and no longer swayed with every exhaled breath. He held his right arm tightly to his chest, the reins hanging loosely from his left. _Concentrate, breathe the colors in the sunlight. Focus, let the split sky slowly come together. Don’t blink, don’t close your eyes. Don’t think, don’t feel tired._ He had ridden all night by the banks of the Seine, and made good time in the crisp moonlit silence, but now as he bullied his way through the western gate, the teeming crowd and their sounds and smells threatened to overwhelm him. A hundred different voices that shouted and fought and cursed and laughed, all at once, their belching humanity blending into a tangible, hurtful noise, an aching hailstorm he submerged in, drowning. Much too late, wading down the center of thoroughfare, he realized his mistake, as sharp-eyed Parisians read the meaning of his tabard and recognized him for what he was. Unafraid, they crowded in. They called out “Herald”, their shrill cries recalling crows descending on carrion, their arms stretched out like so many waving feelers, their relentless hands holding him hostage. Struggle as she might, his horse could not move for the press of bodies, and exhaustedly, he held her back from trampling them down. Mount and rider slowed, then stopped, completely surrounded.

“Herald, what is the news?” said one. “Where are the English?” yelled another. By now they have heard tales from deserters and scavengers and mercenary men but here was a lone herald in royal device, and they were ravenous. Montjoy beheld the swiftly gathering crowd, their upturned faces, their needful gazes fixed on him, and uncertainly, he reported.

“We lost in the fields of Agincourt, but the English retreat to Calais.”

The crowd rose up at the sound of his voice, each street merchant and washer woman clamoring for his attention, some shouting the name of a father or son, others concerned for lands and farms, and each one fearful of the fantastic English phantom. Those at the front, who had heard him, howled for details, while those at the back, who had not, surged forward in confusion. Fruit scattered across the road as someone knocked over a basket, and in all the chaos dirt-smudged urchins scrambled through the milling legs, heedless of danger. Those who tripped and fell were trampled mercilessly. Everywhere was searing noise and moving lips and nightmarishly, they flailed faceless, their features lost in the throng. Pain struck through Montjoy’s head, distracting him, transporting him. He knew at once he should not have spoken, but the words would not return. Competing voices throbbed in his mind with the aimless dissonance of animal noise. He felt his tabard grabbed in half a dozen places. His mount snapped at her aggressors left and right in warning, her skittish prancing hooves crushed their feet, but still they pressed in.

“He’s bleeding!” Blood had breached its thin gauze bounds as he fought their grasping hands, darkly blotching him front and back. Like one beast, the mob convulsed with fear and bloodlust, trusting only their eyes and their fell imaginations. He found himself wavering, losing his grip on the reins at the impetus of a dozen hands, inexorably giving in, giving up. Cold sweat fed the fires of fever, burning as fuel the strength in his limbs. As he felt himself falling, an icy command split the sound.

“Enough!”

The captain of the city garrison rode a tall black horse clad in cloth of blue and white, and in his hand, a naked sword. It caught the light, gleaming. Sweat steamed off the sides of his mount like a dread bestial fog. His voice was a stiff club, roughly hewn from deep marble rage, cold and crushing. “At the count of three, any man remaining will be put in chains.” Six men flanked him, clad in armor, their faces masked by iron helms. The herald saw the edges of the crowd fray and felt their fury fade away in the law’s forbidding presence.

“One,” he said, stony faced.

One by one the mob released the herald, muttering under their breath. Those that dared to challenge him aloud, the captain stared down the length of his blade, and they fell silent.

"Two,” he said, his sword swaying, his men fanning out.

Begrudging his presence and crackling with unspent energy, the Parisians dispersed. Montjoy quailed sheepishly as the full force of the captain’s gaze slowly turned on him, grinding around with all the ponderous force of a revolving obelisk. “Montjoy, King of Arms,” his title was pronounced like a death sentence. “Know that were you not His Majesty’s herald I would hang you from the city gate.” He turned his horse around in a huff. Faced with the captain’s broad back, Montjoy sighed to see the stiff set of his shoulders, the loud retort as he sheathed his sword with too much force. He knew the man well enough to predict that no gentle lecture awaited. _Let this be quick at least, if not painless._

“Were I not His Majesty’s herald, you would have no reason to hang me from the city gate,” Montjoy pointed out reasonably as he drew abreast. He flinched as the brooding man threw him a look that threatened murder. “Louis, my friend,” the herald began, his tone appeasing, but the captain cut off his apology with a ferocious gesture. “The whole city is on edge,” he growled, launching into his tirade as they crossed the bridge into Ile de la Cite, “Bloodshed between the factions. Wailing in the streets! Celebrating in the streets! Out and out brawling in the streets!” As if suddenly cognizant that he had started yelling, Louis paused to visibly calm himself, but his composure did not last more than a dozen words. “And just when everyone’s nerves are stretched to the limit, what comes but scattered news of a herald riding into Rouen, each story more and more outrageous. Shot by arrows! Bleeding from a dozen wounds! Toppling dead from his horse! Riding in dead! And here you are, a blood-stained pale-faced revenant, riding through the city like the damned English wolves are at your heels. Are you trying to cause me a riot? _Because you’re doing a damn good job of it._ ”

The herald began an apologetic gesture, but winced instead when a streak of pain shot through his shoulder. Moments later, it echoed through his head, sharp enough to make him blink and shudder. “Foolish of me to ride in tabard I know,” he said tiredly. “My deepest apologies. It was not my intent to cause you such distress, but I…” He smiled without humor. “I am finding it quite hard to think clearly this day.” _But I can see all in colors, slowly spinning. I can breathe all in razor edges. In this bright light, on the sharp agony, I just cannot find my own thoughts in my head._

Grimly, the captain noted how herald’s hands sporadically shook with tremors, how he smiled without strength, his eyes drooping closed, and how he spoke calmly of his own pale weakness as if it was another man’s malady. His voice low and concerned, he said, “I heard report of your death.” Montjoy shook his head slowly, denying death’s dark specter with a weary grimace. “Not just yet.” A single hand wave spoke eloquently of his disregard in the face of injury. The captain’s practiced eye took stock of the damage. There was blood on his tabard in two places, his shoulder, and, beneath the cloak, his lower back. Two shots, he concluded, not a dozen like the rumors, but he knew keenly from experience even one was an agonizing burden. Even one he had been lucky to survive.

“You should not ride in this condition,” he said bluntly. “You should not have come. Or your quack doctor should have tied you down.” Fever had clearly set in. It was there in the slurring of his speech, so careful otherwise, so meticulously constant and correct; it  gleamed in his cold sweat; it struck in the migraine flashes that made him clutch unconsciously at his head. “Do not fault the poor man, he admonished me greatly.” The herald mimed the doctor’s stern gestures, his hair-pulling frustration. "But he did not realize I was a madman until I was walking out the door.”

“Look at you!” cried Louis. “A man in your state should not joke about death. You leak everywhere like a water-filled basket and you burn up inside with fever and infection.”

“My friend, water does not burn well,” Montjoy said evenly, shying away as the captain raised a closed fist in his direction. He held out both hands, palms open, in surrender. “Don’t hit me,” he laughed, “I am sorry.” As they entered the main garrison courtyard, Louis dismissed his men with a wave. “Wait,” he commanded as he dismounted, “Let me help you.” His tone brooked no dissent. “Don’t you dare fall off your horse in my city.” After a moment’s hesitation, Montjoy took his offered hand without comment, and swung off his horse stiffly. Agony bloomed as he hit the ground, crimson and violet and blinding white, and he staggered at it, but the sturdy soldier held him up by his good arm until he regained his balance. “Thank you,” the herald whispered, his breath coming in harsh gasps. “Don’t thank me yet,” came the brisk reply. “The citizens are primed like a pyre, and there will be no more forgiveness if you light it.”  

*

As the tall captain bent his head through the low doorway, liquid sloshed at the mouth of the jug he bore, a drop escaping to melt through the wooden floor. He thumped two mugs onto the table, and hands on his hips, flatly considered the herald. Montjoy wondered what exactly it was the man saw. He had not seen his own reflection for some days now. Some raw and pallid ghost no doubt, dirty from too much travel, gaunt from too much battle, and twitching, rabbit-eyed, a man who saw murderers in every shadow. This captain was surely everything he was not, the very image of a garrisoned officer, married and contented, calm and at ease in his own home as he sat sprawled out in his chair. Eating well in Parisian style had filled him out, but his military bearing was as rigid as ever. Bushy eyebrows near covered his frowning eyes, except where a puckered scar crossed the left one, and no hair grew. He filled their cups, and they drank to the health of the king. “I grow older,” Montjoy said, “but you never age. Paris suits you.”

The captain shrugged amicably. “The city is a jealous mistress, always in trouble, unreasonable, never satisfied, and yet somehow she makes you come back for more.” He snorted and winked at the herald over the rim of his mug. “Stick to your lonely roads and your faithful horse yet, herald, I don’t doubt she is far more constant.” 

“Ah, she has a sweet countenance, it’s true,” Montjoy conceded with a sigh. “They look so kind while reeling you in, and then, you look back to find your days have been spent combing their hair and cleaning their shoes.” The herald chuckled as Louis pulled a long face at all the horrors of married life, real and imagined. “She would trample me in an instant,” he said, “were I, like you, to find such a grand Parisian mistress.”

“What’s this about mistresses…?”

Both men jumped as the captain’s wife bustled suddenly into the room, her hands full of bread and savory stew. Louis shot Montjoy a look very much like the footman who has heard the thundering approach of a hundred mounted knights, charging his line, and elegantly, the herald rose up to distract her. “Catherine, it has been too long.” He kissed her cheeks in greeting, a warm smile chasing the ghosts of illness temporarily from his features. “Your radiance is enough to make a single man go out of his mind for envy, and your hospitality far too good for me.” With a wide and playful grin she pushed a plate of bread into his hands. “And you, Herald,” she pronounced gravely, “as wicked a flatterer as always.”

“You malign me much, madam,” he cried in mock agony, “Never would I dare to lie to you.”  
“I only wish you could train my husband thus.” She shrugged her burdens onto the table and eyed her husband sternly. “So he takes a mistress now?”  
“Nothing of the sort,” Montjoy assured her, “Your husband’s only mistress is duty, and though his sword is fine and sharp, it is far too cold for a man to love. How could onerous responsibility ever hope to compete with blissful marital love?”

She was as tall as her husband, with the same confident posture and straight-forward nature that shone steadily through the strength in her arms and her clean honest gaze as she wrapped the herald up in a brief embrace. She brought in her hands the warmth of the kitchen fire, and the quiet still fragrances of rosemary, sage and thyme, heady and sweet and so jarring from his constant companions of blood and earth and iron that for a moment he could no more comprehend it than a foreign language, but when he did, it awed him. Unconsciously, he thought of the English king, whose embrace had raced electric down his spine, a blade descending through a potent mix of betrayal and wide-eyed admiration, tapping into pure emotion. The memory closed up, hastily, forbidden, and painstakingly he put it away.

_But he had whispered in my ear, I remember, sweet and sincere. Make my heart stop. Close as any lover. The smell of blood and earth and iron. Stop it now._

“You’ve grown thinner,” she said. “You look tired.” She put one gentle finger to the stain on his shoulder, and came away frowning. “And you’ve got blood on your shirt,” she said, accusingly. “Take him to a doctor, Louis,” she exclaimed, rounding on her husband. Hastily, he put down the piece of bread he was nibbling. “Calm down, wife, we will go directly after we have eaten.”

“There is no need,” Montjoy said, placating, “It seems to have stopped bleeding.” She pinned him with a withering glare. “You will go,” she commanded, and was only satisfied when the herald nodded. Then she swept out the door, shaking her head as she went. As Montjoy sat down, the captain tore a loaf in half and passed it to him with a casual glance. The sweet smell of fresh yeast mingled and danced in the stew’s hearty salt tang, like newlyweds at a midsummer wedding, the oily richness of meat glorious extravagance. He sighed. It had been a long while since he had eaten like this, harking back to different times, and irrationally, he feared it was a mirage, too good to be true, primed to collapse at the slightest intrusion, with the consequence that he could not bring himself to touch the food for fear of dispelling the illusion. Every soft pore in the center of the bread that was softly collapsing in the open air, every shining bead of fat drawn up on roast and puckered skin drew his attention with impossible clarity. The captain had no such illusions, and in short fashion he was tucking into his meal, not noticing the herald’s hesitation.  

“So civil war recommences,” he said through a mouthful, “I shall tell you I have had reports. The Duke gathers men in Dijon. The Prince gathers men in Rouen. Everywhere men are gathering. Even here in the streets of Paris.”  
“So the Dauphin thinks,” nodded the herald. “By now the English are in Calais, and they will sail with the tide back to England. They will not come again so soon.” His voice leans faraway, and sad. “No man who was at Agincourt, however ferocious, can have stomach for more fighting.” The captain leaned in close, his eyes growing grim, his face overshadowed. Like the rest of the city, he gleaned what he could from scattered tales, and rumors and hearsay, and his curiosity was craving.

"What happened there?”  
“A disaster. A vast unmitigated slaughter. Consuming every man, regardless of rank.”  
“The English gave no quarter?”  
“Only to a handful. Only to the lucky. The English king saw our knights reforming and ordered every prisoner be slain lest he rise up again. Hundreds had their throats slit in the mud, most by common men, some by children.”

_The same voice that orders death of thousands, the same voice that moves men and speaks to God._

“Dear God, this villainy at the highest level.” The captain slammed one fist against the table, shaking the cups and rattling the plates. “This is what passes for chivalry in England. I spit on their titles, they are no knights, they are nothing more than murderers.”

Montjoy turned cold eyes on him, bluer than the harsh winter sky, and colder than the blizzard blowing in. “He had more peasants than knights, more foot than mounted. Three archers to every sword. They were hungry and weary and sick. They filled the sky with arrows.”

“Can it be, that peasants and sticks triumph over horse and armor?” Louis waved one hand, uncomprehending. The same aching confusion that had reigned over the throne room, and cast a shadow on his mad king’s face. The news fresh from his lips, at once all eyes had fallen on the monarch, all breaths held in the crystal silence, lest he shatter upon the slightest breeze. He had regarded the herald in his distant, royal grief, and waved his litany on.  

 _The peasants and sticks of one man, and how he moves them…_  

“The armies were as night and day. Our knights greedy and proud. God turned his face away when He saw they were in love with their own might.” _Their magnificence in excess, their overbearing pride in excess._ “Say what you will of Henry England,” said the herald plainly, “he commands the love and loyalty of his people like no other. They followed him with fierce devotion and obedience, in the face of certain death. In the face of a thousand armored knights and horses, they marched forward.”

_They planted their stakes as if to say, here we are. Come on. And the arrows fell like rain…_

“What, this English king chosen by God?” Louis scowled. “God does not favor honorless murderers.”

“And yet,” the herald hesitated, fretting over a crumb. “And yet I saw him on his knees in the mud, humbly giving thanks to God, even as I gave him the victory.”  When he looked up, he saw the captain was disbelieving.

_And yet, if you only knew him as I do._

“And yet I saw him hunched before a fire, grieving for the hatred in his wake. He cried for sorrow at the battle’s toll. He hung an English soldier for stealing from a church. He walked on foot across the field, carrying bodies for burial. And for all the honor of the dead he caused his men to sing Non Nobis and Te Deum.” He studied the captain’s gaze. The Frenchman was frowning, suspicious and doubting.

_And yet do I even know him at all? How absurd for his words to be born of sincerity. His actions speak a different story… do they?_

“And yet, he caused hundreds to be murdered after they had given up their gloves. And in his wake, the bodies of the dead mounted up like new mounds in the plain.” Remembering their touch, their waxy skin, Montjoy rubbed his fingers together instinctively.

“So is the new King of England a Christian prince, or a murdering warlord?” asked Louis. “Speak plainly, herald.”

Montjoy shrugged painfully. “How can I? I don’t know what to think of the English king. He ... defies classification, else invents it. But he has this energy about him, an energy that sweeps everything else before it. I could see him moving his men by it.”

_Move me by it…_

“I will tell you a curious thing. He saved my life.” The captain, choking in surprise, coughed violently for several moments. “He gave me a coat of mail. It is the reason I am not bled out in some lonely forest.”

“What happened in that lonely forest?”  
“Ambushed by crossbowmen, without arms or insignia.”  
“Crossbowmen. And a kingly gift that explains why you still stand here. Why would _the King of England_ give a Valois herald a coat of armor?” Louis asked skeptically. “He found you so pleasantly charming?”

 _“_ Surely you jest Louis. He gave me letters to carry.”  
“And you delivered these letters? For an enemy?”  
“An enemy _king_ ,” Montjoy chastised him. “Surely it is my duty. But perhaps you are right to be suspect. Perhaps he meant for the letters to be read by the Dauphin. The Dauphin’s face was consumed by fury when he read them.”

The captain wrapped his head in his hands, his expression pained. “You make the Englishman a prophet, or a genius. But he is only a young and upstart king, if a commanding one. How could he know of ambush, unless he had sent them? But why would he send assassins, only to give you mail against them? Is there any benefit in a half-dead herald, as opposed to a dead one?”

“I have no satisfactory answers,” said the herald. “They had crossbows that could put a bladed bolt through royal armor. You know their worth. Too expensive for common mercenaries. Yet, at Agincourt the English had only longbows.” The captain fell silent for a while, chewing contemplatively.

“This is dangerous intrigue you are mired up to the neck in,” he said finally, “and we poor men have no means of defense. You should be more wary. Clearly the English do not follow our rules. They seem to have none of their own. And their new king is some kind of madman.”

_Only, you would see, if you know him as I do … he has a way of instilling trust, a way of speaking with a sincerity and a closeness about him that you do not get in a king or prince. A way of speaking more like a …? False sincerity, blatant lies, plain misunderstandings, I have dealt with all these before, and I don’t know what this is, but it is something different._

“Madman or no, he has the will, the men and the wit to take France by force.”  
“And what if he besieges Paris? Will he offer terms?”

Montjoy smiled humorlessly. “Have you not heard of Harfleur? He will offer terms, and he will make you take them. But his are not the terms you should worry for. Enough French hands yet vie for your city.”

“True enough. And each and every one our lord and master hey? What a mess. Eat up. We will go swiftly to the doctor, whom I will instruct to tie you to a bed. Then I must attend to the Dauphin’s orders.” The herald responded indignantly, his mouth full of food. “Wait, I muf suferfise youf…”

“I would think a man who dines at the court could have learned not speak with his mouth full,” interjected the captain archly.  
“My friend, I am but a reflection of my host.” He winched, laughing, as the man reached over and carefully slapped him across the head.

*

Unfortunately, the captain made good his threat, and though he did not bind the herald directly with rope, he issued strict orders to his men expressly against his release from his room. Thus, it was only towards the end of the next day, as they changed over their patrols, that Montjoy managed to evade their watchful eye and abscond from the stifling confines of the garrison’s sickbay. _Enough of this. Enough thinking over impossibilities, enough searching dead ends like a blind man in a cruel maze. Enough of this headache._ He emerged into the sunlight blinking, feeling wan and stretched thin, every thought strained through a dull and clinging haze, every action clipped by warning pain. In the cool fresh air, stealing past the looming silhouette of Notre Dame, he felt his weakness, his smallness intensely.

A shadow detached itself from the southern lee of the great church as the herald merged into the crowded bridge, and so smoothly, nonchalantly, fell in beside him, such that the herald barely noticed his appearance. But, his smiling face and casual regard, caught by Montjoy in the briefest glance through the corner of his eye, called up some barely remembered name, some dimly remembered acquaintance he painstakingly brushed off, and held up to the light. An instinct flared, a lone guiding light in a nebulous fog, and he plunged after it. In the middle of the bridge he paused, and veered suddenly to the wooden rail. To his horror, the man followed, and as he drew up next to him, the herald challenged him with his best guess. Uncertainly, he said, “I know thee, Lieutenant Enguerrand of Picardy.” The man’s concurrent grin gave him the certainty to continue, “Why art thou following me?” He was plainly dressed, a man of his station, in warm wool and well-kept leather, but shorn of any fur or trimmings. “What a marvelous memory,” he pronounced with genuine enthusiasm, “a mainstay of your profession no doubt.”

“I remember,” _…what? Candle fire with blackness dancing at the heart? A king in crestfallen sorrow. A muted, solemn gathering. A throne room transfixed by his aching words._ “You were there, in Rouen.”  
“Do not be so alarmed, Herald. I would be a friend to you.”  
“And yet I find your actions are alarming, good Lieutenant.”

The man sketched a short bow. “If I give offense, I am deeply sorry. Pray, let me explain. I am composing a Chronicle for the ages. A history in the grand tradition of Froissart,” he said with a flourish, and seemed disappointed when the herald’s neutral expression did not alter. “I see,” the herald said eventually, when it became clear the man was waiting for his reply. “But you are no court-appointed historian,” he pointed out. With a heavy sigh, the man continued, “alas no, but I am nonetheless fully committed, and my conviction has brought me here. Of course, had you not ridden from Rouen so suddenly, in the middle of the night no less,” he winked as if at some communal conspiracy, “our meeting could have been in a time and place more at ease for you. As it was, I had a devil of a time finding you, my dear herald.” Montjoy drew back in the inexorable pressure of the words flowing past him, swiftly streaming by with barely an indrawn breath, but the Lieutenant did not relent. “To have been where you were,” he said breathily, “in the thick of battle. You have given the court the facts, but yet tell me more, Montjoy King of Arms. Tell me of the young lion, the conquering king.”

_Oh yes, what shall be said in French history of Henry at Agincourt?_

Eyeing the chronicler’s hungry regard, his desperate curiosity, the herald turned to leave, his face set. He felt time passing keenly, felt the weight of the Dauphin’s instructions settling ever heavier about his shoulders. He did not want to entertain a single curious man, however passionate that man might be. But the Lieutenant caught up his arm before he could escape, and his grip was surprisingly sure, surprisingly strong. Here was a man whose history, whose motivations he knew little of, but for his employment with the Duke of Burgundy, and the flicker of some needy moving shadow behind his eyes.

“Please,” said the herald evenly, “let me go. I must attend to my duties.”  
“Then let me walk with you, Herald,” he pleaded.  
“I would prefer if you did not.”

They stared at each other across a chasm of desire and indifference, and finally the man smiled, thin and regretful. “My most sincere apologies, but I simply cannot let you slip away. Whence will come this singular chance for me to hear your story plain? Instead, I find I must remind you of your indiscretion yesterday, and what it engendered so swiftly.” _Here it is, the crux of the matter. The chronicler who tracks, who waits in shadow and who springs an ambush. Without the backing of the throne, the slant of his mind aids his trade. He will have what he wants, and now the mercenary tactics come, inevitable as the turning tide._

“Is that a threat?” Montjoy asked plainly.  
“It is a warning,” murmured the man, gesturing around them circumspectly. “Though you go without tabard, a shout of recognition could perhaps, ignite a spark.” The herald surveyed the crowded bridge, a baying trap waiting to be sprung, with jaws of grasping hands and many mouths to scream alarm, and shuddered at the memory. He could not be certain it would work, and yet did not believe it would not, and caught in the man’s winking regard, he acquiesced reluctantly. “Very well, Chronicler, walk with me. I will tell you…”

 _What?_  
_Will I relate to you Henry’s words at battle’s start? His tears at battle’s end?_  
_The way his men knelt and prayed with a piece of the earth in their mouths?_  
_Or how he stood over his brother’s body with blooded sword?_  
_Or how he spoke to God?_

 _No._  
_What you want is blood. The scent is in your nose. The lust in your eyes._  
_And Yes._  
_You can have all the blood you want._  
_You can gorge on it._  
_There was no lack of it at Agincourt._  
_You want to hear of England's king?_  
_I will tell you how the young lion roars._

“I will tell you how the conqueror is.” He walked briskly, and spoke quietly, so they went like spies, or lovers, down the cramped narrow streets. “Before the battle, I go to deliver the king’s final demands, to make him an offer to save England’s small and sorry band from their inevitable end, but what do I find? The herald drew the man in, his soft voice falling steadily softer, and the chronicler responded with consuming curiosity, eyes widening, lips parting. “He’s hung an Englishman!” At the fervent pronouncement, the Lieutenant gasped in surprise. Rapt, his eyes do not leave the herald’s face, even as he trips along.

“He hung the man from a tree with thick rope. One of his own men-at-arms. The corpse swings lifelessly there on the road. His face is so red and bloated, it is not of man but of some beast. And all the Englishmen are standing around their king, bearing witness.”

_Now Chronicler, you may decide for yourself, what kind of man is Henry of England, to hang his own on the eve of battle._

“And there with the dead body hanging next to me, I made His Majesty’s claims.”  
“And how did England answer?” asked his pursuer eagerly.  
“I will tell you he had a smile on his lips, a thin and mirthless one, and no smile in his eyes. With the same even tone with which he orders execution, he looks me in the eye, and yet promises to discolor the tawny ground of France with our red blood.”   
“My God,” the chronicler whispered, but he is not afraid, he is entranced.

“Your God?” breathed the herald, as he looked upon the city walls, and carefully counted the number of patrolling guards. “Henry England is God’s chosen.” He watched the stationed archers watch the coming and going crowds. “God will let him ravage all our cities and our families in grievous retribution for our sins of pride.” He peered past the raised portcullis, and down the winding road, spotted at least one shadowy mounted form, holding roadside vigil. Satisfied, he turned abruptly away, heading south and east for the water, his erstwhile companion matching him stride for stride. “God looked down and smiled as the king grabbed the trumpet from his squire, and as he sounds it, thousands of Englishmen across the battlefield reach as one for their knives. They look to the captured knights like butchers to livestock, and they are as emotionless in the killing.”

“Poor shameless deaths. Not by lance or by sword but by cowardly daggers and wooden stakes, stabbed like thieves in the night, gravely dishonored.” They wound through bustling market streets, and in the churning faces the herald began to see the bloodied chaos of battle, began to feel his nerves fray, but still he spoke. Enguerrand of Picardy was hanging on to his every word. “The Englishmen slice so many throats that the blood becomes a flood, it turns all the ground to glue and mud, and drowns others who have fallen right there in the metal encumbrance of their armor. Many more drowned in the blood of their brothers in arms, than killed in righteous battle. Even dead they were not spared from sleeting arrow shot and iron shod hooves mangling their faces and bodies, rendering them unrecognizable.”

By now the historian had paled considerably, and the herald who had omitted the worst of the details at court now marshaled all of their visceral power to distress and disconcert. “But throughout it all the English king is… invincible. I saw him charging the line, again and again, not a man able to bring him down.”

_There, at last, a token unvarnished truth. You fought alongside your men, alongside your brothers, real and honorary. Small wonder they can move heaven and earth for you._

“In the final throes of the battle, I go to him to seek a peace, to give him the day and beg his leave to administer our dead. He is drenched in blood, he is up to his wrists, his face in it, and he does not wipe it off.” They walked together by the northern banks of the Seine, and Montjoy inspected the high walls of the Bastille. Men, carts and horses moved plentifully through the fortress’ inner gates, laying in supplies the herald surmised. “As I ride up, Henry England flings his sword away, and he stalks up to me.” He pauses deliberately, turning from his survey of the boats on the river to face the Lieutenant. “He takes hold of my shirt with both hands and rips me away from my horse and throws me to the ground. I swear to you I thought I was to surrender my life at that instant, but he mocks me to my face with ransom instead.”

“He mocks all chivalry and custom then!” Enguerrand cried aloud, and Montjoy hastily skirted the attention his shout attracted around a towering stack of crates. He was in sight of the tall walls and ornate windows of his ultimate destination, but his progress meandered as he eyed the river marshals. The arbiters of the water seemed alert, if not overly concerned, and Montjoy did not fault them. “He mocks us all with his victory. There he asks me, in the mud, amidst the scattered bodies of our hacked and dismembered countrymen, to whom the victory belongs. He professes ignorance, though all around him the bodies of our dead are stacked high enough to be seen for miles away, and nothing stirs but crows and Englishmen. To my eternal shame I tell him the day is his. He is master of the battlefield, and all of us who still remain, our lives are forfeit. He wrings humiliation from us all at the last.”

It seemed to Montjoy that the young man shared his shame, for he had cast his eyes downwards and his mouth was tight-lipped and forlorn, and for the first time, a twinge of guilt afflicted him, especially for what he was about to do. “Now you know as I know of Henry of England,” he said, and abruptly stopped within the gateway of a paved courtyard entrance. “I hope your curiosity most assuaged, Lieutenant, for now I must bid you good day.” As the man began a surprised protest, Montjoy waved to the approaching guard and said, “Hello, Francis. Please see this fine Lieutenant off, he was just leaving.” Too late, his companion recognized the king’s own Parisian residence of Saint-Pol, and to his credit grinned amicably as the guard put one hand on his arm. “Well done, herald. Very well done. I bid you farewell.” For his candor, Montjoy reserved a small, secret smile as he ducked into the servants’ entrance, and following a casual conversation with the household staff, exited out the back door, once again alone and incognito.

*

He had walked the city without uniform, and felt at ease when he saw the full and busy preparations under way at every gatehouse and tower, but fearful of being put back into his room he did not rush to find the captain. The sick room’s small confines only heightened his sense of urgency, and that soulful itching need to be out travelling, as if under a galloping sky of stars there was peace to be found. _Better to be outside at least, than staring blankly at bloody linen and measuring out the length and breadth of my weakness._ Thus, back on the Ile de Cite, he was pacing fitfully by the western island bank and brooding on the inevitable ride to Dijon when he heard his name called by an unfamiliar voice.

“Montjoy, King of Arms.”

His eyes darting up and down the path warily, he saw only a lone man approaching, young and well-dressed, with a pleasantly inquiring expression on his face and a short ornate sword on his hip. Eyeing the herald’s tense and flighty posture, the man displayed his two empty hands in front of him in a gesture of peace, and made a calming motion, stroking the air. As he drew closer, and his face was illuminated in the gentle afternoon light, Montjoy drew in a hushed breath, registering his identity with apprehensive surprise. Quick as instinct, he shifted his stance, feet square, hands held behind his back, a stiff, familiar parade ground rest.

“Please, be calm,” said young man soothingly. “I mean you no harm.” His voice was pure courtly affability and learned political blandness. “My Lord, Count of Charolais,” said the herald, bowing low, wincing as the wound in his back flared in sharp protest. A powerful title, and an empty one for the young man who had claim to all the west of France. “You do your title credit, herald,” he said, approving but apathetic, waving away the honorific with one hand. Eerily, the man himself had recognized the herald without tabard and uniform, a feat Montjoy doubted other lords of his stature at the court could perform. Of course, he had yet to inherit his father’s title, and there was nothing but the pleasant air of social superiority about him, born and bred into noblemen’s sons so that they could hold their heads high amongst each other and in the opulence of the court. To his credit, he spoke thoughtfully, and moved purposefully, seeming older than his twenty years. In a moment of solitude, the first-born son of John the Fearless had come upon him, while no other marked his presence. His cool sincerity made the herald shiver.

 _I remember, Henry had done it once,_ _came upon me out of office, out of sorts. Done it out of some English humor no doubt, in whose fell miasma all of this is spawned._

As if in answer to an unspoken question, the man remarked, “I am glad you did not come to harm in yesterday’s commotion.” _Of course, hundreds had witnessed his violent, clattering arrival into the city. No doubt more than one still held Burgundy as their rightful lord, more than one reporting to this sleek and sharpened man. Easy enough for him to track me here, to the heart of the city. Once again, that foolishness comes back to haunt._ Strongly, he resisted the urge to look behind him, although his back itched and crawled. The sunlight glared like so many fallen diamonds off the seething river, just approaching that golden hour when everything would be bathed in its most flattering light, and every tree would be wreathed in gold streamers, every tower tiled with glittering treasure. “What a shame,” Philippe sighed. “That it should come to this. Don’t you think?”

“My lord?” Montjoy said neutrally. He met the level, appraising gaze of the young man, one hand casually on the hilt of his sword, the other extending, open palm upwards. “I imagine you bring my father some record of the dead. May I have it?” Montjoy submitted to him the handwritten list without a word, and he unfolded it delicately, and read it in severe, unblinking silence. Although his expression is calm, the herald sees the barest crumple of paper where his fingertips tighten imperceptibly. “Tell me of the fields of Agincourt,” he said finally, folding up the note again, neatly as a royal scribe. He dropped it in the herald’s waiting grasp, gingerly as if dropping a knife. “Tell me what Henry of England wrought and how he did it.”

_Another man asks. Another image, another reckoning. What will this one want, or appreciate? The young lord, with all the west on his shoulders. Will he know the man, the facts or all the gory details?_

“He set his longbowmen on the high ground, and defended them with his foot and horse, and a forest of sharpened stakes. All around the dense woodland offered them cover, except for the ploughed field before them.”

“And so we charged into them,” said the Burgundian lord. “Exactly as he intended.”

“The knights and men-at-arms charged into a hail of arrow shot, heavily armored and visors down. They churned the sodden ground into a dense and clinging pit, and slogged through it. Those who fell, drowned in shallow mud. Those who made it to the English line, were met by the waiting defenders. They were shot at point-blank range by archers on the flanks. They were out-maneuvered by unarmored men, who came at them with hatchets and thrusting swords and hammers and stakes. Soon, they had to clamber over the bodies of the fallen, and they were quickly exhausted, their weapons falling from their hands.”

“You tell me my uncles were slaughtered empty-handed by arrows in the mud, Herald?” asked the Count, his voice pitched low and dangerous, his eyes narrowing. “You tell me they went to shameless, honorless deaths?”

The herald took a deep breath, and plunged headlong. “My Lord Count, before the battle’s end, Henry of England gave the order for all the prisoners to be put to death. They were slain by the knife of the common Englishman.”

He felt the man’s fury radiating from him, as tangible as sunlight on skin, and clenched his hands together behind his back, and straightened his shoulders, so he would not be tempted to flinch. But the heir of John de Burgundy looked up into the rose-streaked sky, and swallowed all of his rage. Though the hand that grasped the hilt of his sword was white-knuckled, and though there in his eyes the herald saw a vast and withering flame, the young man remained statue-still, and his composure porcelain. “So now I know of Henry of England,” he said evenly, measuring every word. “He fights without honor. His blood runs with ice. A fearsome enemy.”  

_Now you know of him, but how can you know him as I do? I know his voice, sometimes cold and commanding, can be soft and amused. I know the touch of his hand and the weight of his armor. I know his violent strength and his gentle gestures. I know the strength of his grasp when throwing me down and when lifting me up. I know the look on his face in fury and in good humor. I know the warmth of his body before the fire. I know his eyes, half in shadow half in light. But still I don’t know him at all._

But spurred by something twisting in his gut, something rendered from the bitter story, some strange unfairness, the herald tries.

“As I gave the English king his complete victory, he fell upon his knees on the mud, and gave all thanks to God.” He felt the young man’s gaze narrow upon him, its pressure mounting, piercing and intense. “He carried bodies across the battlefield on foot,” said the herald, his heart aching, “French and English, while all around him, his men sang Non Nobis and Te Deum to the honor of the dead.”

_How many times will you face a Frenchman with these facts, and endure the burn of their displeasure. And for what gain? They care not. They want not. They need not to know him as you do._

He started, painfully, as the Count grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and hauled him against the rough stone wall. “So what,” he hissed, the roaring blaze behind his eyes searing his voice hollow, “does he thus bring back the dead? Does he thus regain his honor?” Montjoy is gaunt, and wide-eyed, but the young lord does not relent. “He may as well have slit my uncles’ throats himself. Within the day he breaks the back of chivalry across the low and common knee of archery.” He spit the word out like a curse. “Do not speak to me of the dead, Montjoy King of Arms, if you have none. Who cares for the rites of an enemy.” He released the herald suddenly, pulling back to his former poise as Montjoy pressed one hand to the wound in his shoulder, grimacing. “Only a fool speaks the grieving man praise of his enemy.” 

The herald nodded tiredly, contrite. “But your honesty, if unwise, does you credit in my eyes,” Phillipe said gravely, “and so I offer you my counsel, value it as you may. This news will break my father’s heart, and raise his ire. Tread lightly.”

As he stormed off, the herald breathed a sigh of relief. He felt his fingers come away wet, and rubbed them absent-mindedly on his shirt, without looking.

_Looks like there is no escape. Knowing him as I do, bring on, my heart, the endless questions._

*

“You have a death wish,” said Louis sternly.

“Captain,” Montjoy pleaded, “Release the reins. I must ride this day.” He looked anxiously to the setting sun, nearly hidden behind the palace turrets, its last light lancing through the parapets like some holy fusillade.

“You are burning with fever and bleeding from two places,” the man pointed out. “You barely got on that horse.”

“Are you trying to reason with a madman?” asked the herald as he tried in vain to pull the harness free.

“I am trying to save a life,” he said stubbornly.

“I did not want to do this,” declared the herald, “but by this habit and this coat of arms, I demand safe passage. Let me through.”

With a dark scowl, the Captain relinquished his grip and threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. Go. Beard the dragon’s den weak and fainting. Perhaps he will give you the greater share of pity.”

“What makes you think I need pity from the Duke of Burgundy?”

“The man washed the streets of Paris in blood once, and now he marches. If you spurn his pity so, direct it unto us instead, poor souls of this city.”

“I hope you shall not speak to the Dauphin thus,” said the herald dimly, “Farewell, Captain, I will see you in Rouen.”

“You shall,” said the Captain, waving him off, “if you make it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	5. Sacred Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s still some time before the English sail…

He was finally cornered in an empty church, on the outskirts of the city. A quiet, pretty space, now faded from glory, but once someone had lavished their love on it, once someone had cherished its soft luminous frescos and its golden figures of adoration. Now its alcoves were hung with dusty curtains, and its iron candle holders bided by empty. _You tricked me, Lord God, I thought your house was sanctuary_. When he half-heard half-imagined the shriek of hinges bent beneath the burden of heavy oak, and the prowling footsteps proceeding deliberately up the nave, he knew he had been given up. Some sharp-eyed servant watching from an upstairs window. Some shouting street merchant, some urchin underfoot. He had not slipped through the English city as inconspicuously as he had meant to, and his retribution stalked up the aisle unerring.

Wearily, he closed his eyes, and leant his head back against the smooth wooden wall, but he had no prayer to offer up, no words of comfort to mouth in the gentle darkness. _And no sympathy from up above, no doubt._ In a soft susurrus of leather and velvet, someone came up to the shrouded alcove, and sat beside him, expectantly. For once, he ignored the rules, ignored all courtesy; the house of God gave him boldness, and the pain, apathy. He did not open his eyes to see who it was, his heart already knew the one person that could make it dance, and indeed it overflowed with smugness when the man spoke in a familiar voice, low and soft in deference to the sacred space, but charged with an alien emotion that lay somewhere between anger and concern.

“Have you been avoiding me, herald?” Henry asked.

Now he could not ignore him, now he could not stay silent. _Yes I have._ He shifted slightly, turning towards the soothing shadows of the angled walls, and away from the king’s unwavering stare. Without opening his eyes, he felt Henry frown, felt his displeasure crackle through the stillness to prickle skin shredded sensitive. Overhead, where beam met joint in sturdy engineered union, a quiet wooden creaking came, like a whisper of the divine. _How serious of a sin is lying in God’s house? T_ here was a hurtful glare shearing off the gleaming crucifix. _What manner of penance should I pay?_ It was many years since he had prayed, and he did not remember the words, else chose not to.

“Your majesty?” he murmured, somehow hoping the conversation would simply end. _One measure of madnesss in a man, hoping one thing while knowing another._  
“You are uncharacteristically impolite this day, Montjoy King of Arms.”  
“My humblest apologies.”

He held the edge of the pew for support, silently summoning the strength to stand up, but the English king put a hand on his right shoulder, lightly, undeniably. The arrow wound screamed at the touch, and he almost did too, but not quite. He swallowed the rawness whole, and bit down on his lip, denying it sound, and life. Foiled, it sank heavily to his gut, writhing impotently, consuming itself. The anger in Henry’s voice had unfolded through the king’s body. It was the tension at his fingertips, the iron in the arm that restrained him. The warmth that surpassed the bleak candle flame illuminating his face.  

“I knew when you entered the city,” Henry said, “I knew when you spoke to Orleans. I know you will be on a ship to Southampton. What I don’t know is why you haven’t presented yourself before me, though you are guest in _my city_.” Montjoy grimaced as Henry’s fingers twitched. Across the alcove, a gentle Mary smiled upon him as she ascended, but her face was faded and her robes were cracked.

“Please—“, said the herald, already breathless with the effort of it. “Take no offense, your majesty. None was meant. I shall speak for my liege upon your command.”

_Not like this. Not breathless, and hurting. Not weak, words stumbling._

Something in his answer came to infuriate the king, or his posture, half-turned away, bent and hiding. “Herald,” he said, without relinquishing his grip on Montjoy’s shoulder, beneath which the herald was slowly quailing. “Face me,” he said, a commandment delivered with dark suspicion, with mounting dread. Montjoy opened his eyes to familiar features, suffused with familiar anger, clipping words and thinning lips and a storm of ages brewing in the clear blue sky.

“What happened?”

_*_

_“Good God, Montjoy, what happened?” Louis exclaimed into the sudden silence._

The Dauphin shot him a stern look. He had spoken out of place, and subsided with visible reluctance, concern etched into his deep frown. Montjoy smiled weakly at him, the single friendly face in the crowded room. A gathering of Armagnac nobles sat by the large oval table, all sumptuous attire and wary, drawn faces, some still fresh with sorrow. Unrolled before them was a massive map of the surrounding lands, dominating the available surface. Someone had arranged a gathering of wooden pieces neatly around Rouen. The brilliant midday sun streamed in through large windows on the opposite wall, casting a bright, precise light onto the herald as he entered. He was upright, and conscious, and had painstakingly changed into clean clothes before attending, but he could do nothing about the bruises and cuts on his face, and the gentle pervasive trembling. If any had marked his lack of ceremony, they did not fault him for it. His stuttering breathing seemed to him the loudest sound in the still room. Before he had even said a single word, the more astute had read the Duke’s meaning from his condition, and hardened their hearts at it.

Bernard, Count of Armagnac, unperturbed by the captain’s outburst, sat hawk-eyed and taciturn at the table’s head. One by one the gathered lords looked to him. He eyed the herald from head to toe, lips pressed into a thin bleak line, but deferred to the Dauphin with a glance.

“Not another ambush?” asked Dauphin Louis, lips pursed.  
“No, your highness.”  
“Burgundy then.”  
“Your highness,” Montjoy said with some effort, cutting to the chase, “the Duke of Burgundy wishes me to assure you he is as true and loyal a servant to the throne as ever, and let no man say otherwise, else suffer the consequences. This letter lately sent by Henry of England is of little import, nor does he repudiate the treaty signed at Bourges. He thanks you for thinking on his brothers, amongst so many noble fallen.”

The room seemed to exhale a single startled breath as the herald staggered, a wave of nausea washing over him. With a grimace, Montjoy put one hand on the table to steady himself, the other held tightly to his chest. He felt the distinct pressure of the captain’s anxious regard from across the room, and tried not to look at him. _Align the spinning room with its rightful axes, and keep on standing. Keep on breathing. Keep on speaking._  

“He has already taken out his anger on you I see,” the Dauphin said, his displeasure plain.  
“He has,” Montjoy replied with a lightness he did not feel, skipping nonchalantly over the details. “As I delivered to him your orders, he replied that his men are for the protection of the city, and he will turn over their command for the city’s defense.”

_He was a heaven-scouring blaze. Even his own men winced to see it._

“A fine story indeed. Next time I see the Duke I will inform him not to use my herald as his whipping boy. It is surely a calculated insult. The man is so insolent now that he thinks we are weak.”

“We _are_ weak,” said Bernard darkly, snatching the attention of the room. “And he is a rogue devoid of honor. Whatever he can, he will take now, in our weakness. Spare me these lies he spouts. Tell us his movements.” The herald turned to him with a dutiful nod.  

“The Duke is less than a week’s march from the city. He has behind him three thousand men, with more arriving every day.” At an impatient gesture from the Count, Montjoy leaned over the map, considering, stalling as he concealed a freshly searing surge of agony down his back. Painstakingly, he moved the wooden markers one at a time, placing the Duke, and his retinue, his horse and his foot, on the path where he had seen them. Information gleaned as and when he could, from itinerant monks, and bored soldiers, and peasants hiding in their roofs. With a tabard of lilies on a field of blue, they did not challenge him. “They gather on the road, and do not stop for long in any place. They scour the countryside as they go.” He set out in painted wood the marching vanguard, the roving bands that gathered supplies at the point of a blade, and the scouts, travelling in pairs as far as Chartres and Troyes.

“Where will they camp?” Bernard demanded.  
“I do not know, my Lord,” replied the herald.  
“His composition?”  
“At a guess, ten to one, foot to horse. Maybe two hundred crossbowmen, maybe four.”  
“Will they siege?”  
“The Duke had no cannon with him. But, I did not ride all the way to Dijon. They could be travelling behind him.” The count nodded briskly, his eyes flickering over the inked roads cobwebbing out from the walls of Paris.  
“And what of the city?”

Now the herald dared a glance at the Parisian captain, who on the edge of his seat, nearly rising out of it, driven to the brink of interrupting. They exchanged a meaningful stare, one side reproving, fraught with worry, the other calmly reassuring.

“Quiet,” he said. “But news of the Duke’s march is on every tongue. And his eldest son, the Count of Charolais, was lately in the city himself.”  
“With men?” cried the Dauphin, indignant.  
“He was alone when we spoke, Highness.”  
“What did you speak of?”  
“He asked for an account of the battle, and the list of fallen, both I gave to him.”  
“His son shall yet temper his actions, perhaps,” mused the Count, largely to himself. He fell into a brooding silence, and upon his cue, the Dauphin dismissed the herald with a wave.

“Montjoy,” he said, as the herald backed away, “I have received the word from Calais. The English have fixed a date to sail.”

Anticipating the Dauphin’s meaning, the captain finally burst out with the protest he had been swallowing in silence; the objection that Montjoy had been hoping his friend would not voice. Bad enough to experience injury and weakness, even worse to hear it remarked upon by others, the former he could still deny, within the confines of his own body and his own mind, but the latter, once aired, was set in stone. And the prince did not enjoy contrary opinions to his own.

“Your highness… like that? He cannot ride like that.”  
The Dauphin rounded upon him with as much fury as a sharply stung cat.  
“Captain! I did not ask for your opinion.”  
“But—“  
“Enough!”

He turned back to the herald. “I believe my father has a message for England. Go to him.” His eyes narrowed, disgusted at a sudden thought. “And do not on any account tell Henry England the truth of your injuries. We will not let him have the satisfaction.”

*

“Robbers, your majesty,” he said. He wanted—needed to get out of there, the musty air now hotly stifling, and the silence only a draw for more untruths that settled uneasily on his shoulders. He returned Henry’s scrutiny with an even, emotionless sincerity, feeling the hypocrisy burn across his soul.

“Robbers,” Henry repeated, in a monotone. It was clear to the herald he had not heard a lie more blatant, more obvious, in his life. There was a breath of challenge about his lips, truth-seeking, mordantly curious, but he only observed the herald in silent dismay, and raised a hand to his face. Warily, Montjoy leaned away, pressing up against the rigid boundaries of wall and seat, and the wringing restraint of Henry’s grip. Fingertips brushed by the livid bruises, the scattering scratches, feathery, hesitant, tracing the extent of injury, making him twitch. “I caused this,” Henry said, and Montjoy pushed away his lingering hand.  Something had to be done to change the subject.

“Thanks to your majesty, I am alive,” he said. “The debt for which I cannot hope to repay.” He smiled quietly. “I can, however, return your majesty’s armor. Somewhat intact, though not wholly.” S _omewhat holey. At least the blood came out._

Henry seemed to realize something was amiss, but it was a few searching moments before he could pinpoint the cause of the ill feeling. Then, he abruptly snatched back his left hand. His fingers came away crimson tinted. Horror leapt into his eyes. Bead by inexorable bead, the deep wound wept into the bandages, and blotted the herald’s plain shirt with vivid color. Montjoy put his hand to the stain tiredly, as if he could somehow pick it up and discard it, like some curled autumn leaf caught upon his collar. Instead, he inspected his own wet fingers distantly, and turned away. Days of riding had not helped his recovery, and one dark night of ill-use had worsened it considerably.

“You are quite mad,” Henry declared. He was seething furious at the empty air. “You should be in bed, not alone in a dark church, worrying about a useless coat of armor.”

_In bed, I would have been far easier to find, no doubt. Not that it has made a difference, in the end._

“A dark church is a good place for a headache,” Montjoy sighed. _Please go away. Please, please go away._

“You will come with me,” Henry said instead, getting to his feet. From his vantage point, he could see the herald sat unnaturally, favoring his injuries, his back arching away from the unforgiving wood, his uninjured shoulder braced against the corner for support. And there still, the constant tension that pervaded every limb, the terse control that held the trembling in check. The sparse wooden pew was not a comfortable seat. It could not have been good for bruised muscle and broken flesh. Montjoy looked up at him, eyes glazed, uncomprehending.

“Even if I have to carry you myself.”

*

 _“God damn you, stop!”_  
“Calm down Louis,” the herald said, guarding the reins to his horse behind his back. “I am perfectly capable of riding. I made it here in one piece, did I not?”  
“One piece?” Louis yelled, “One bloody piece?”

Unable to articulate his anger the captain resorted to a loud growl of frustration, fierce enough to spook the closest horses. When the herald did not respond, only looked calmly at him, he swung a fist at a nearby post with such fury that dust fell in a fine shower from the stable rafters. The loud thump called the horses, fitful and snorting, to their stall doors to stare disapproving, and he growled again at them as if to say, mind your own business. The fact that they did not understand seemed to frustrate him further. Montjoy calmed his own mount with a patient hand as she rolled one menacing eye at the captain.

"Tell me what happened,” the captain said.  
“No,” Montjoy replied pointedly.  
“You cannot ride like this.”  
“So you have said. Many times.”  
“Good God, you are impossible.”  
“And so are you. Let me through.”  
“With this one finger, I can stop you.”

Louis put one sturdy finger to the herald’s shoulder, and pushed, and Montjoy winced, breathless.

“You call yourself my friend?” he gasped, backing up a step as the captain waved the finger under his nose.  
“I do,” Louis said. “Against my better judgment, I let you ride from Paris with two gaping wounds, and now you come back looking like you’ve been trampled by a herd of horses.”  
“It is not so bad as that.”  
“So says the man who hasn’t looked into a single mirror since he got here.”

The herald matched him stare for stare, and relenting, put his hand on the brandished finger, bearing it down gently.

“I appreciate your concern, Louis, deeply. But my liege has spoken, and the Dauphin has spoken. And we both know I am riding out this hour. Be calm, I no longer ride into the dragon’s den. I will be fine.”

The soldier snorted. “You think the lion’s den any safer?” he said sarcastically, but his eyes were already defeated.

*

The herald blinked slowly. _He must be bluffing. He must be. He cannot drag me out of here._ The grim unwavering steel in Henry’s eyes said otherwise. _Madman? He is madder than I. I am heartily sick of being called a madman._ He looked away, looked anywhere else, but the most Christian king of England did not simply disappear, as he had hoped. _The whole world has gone mad. God take all this raging concern for my health. It fast becomes a nuisance. I just wish to sit here, in the dark, and the peace and the quiet… and die drop by drop._ He almost smiled, at the theatrical turn of his thoughts, how unlike him to be so tedious, so overly dramatic. _Madness._ “Your majesty,” he said, inclining his head with his customary deference, and pushed himself off the seat with a grimace. _At the very least I can be myself. Thank God for small concessions, at least today is a good day and I will not be falling into anyone’s arms._

The king watched him closely as they went down the aisle and out the front door, his hand hovering protectively on the herald’s left arm, not quite grasping it yet not quite letting go, as if uncertain if he would bolt, or fall, at any moment’s notice. The herald made a resolution to look into a mirror as soon as possible. It must be some virulent color or plague, to cause such consternation. _Why?_ England’s king had come alone, on foot and in disguise, to personally march him out of the church he had been hiding in. _Why ask why? The reason why you hid in the first place. The same exact reason. And you already know it._ Henry moved in his city like a life-long citizen, confident and composed, turning corners without hesitation, taking strange short-cuts. Yet, they were a clumsy, awkward pair, one stiff and limping, discomfited by his companion, the other taking short unnatural strides, walking on tenterhooks with worry.

“Your majesty, please.” Montjoy halted in a quieter side street, breaths coming fast as he spoke. “I am no herald for my king like this. I will not represent him nor France today.”  
“And I will not force you to deliver his message.”  
“Then… then where are we going?”  
“We are going to make sure you stay in bed!”

Bewilderment silenced him, and it was several streets over before the herald ventured another, more tentative opinion.

"I do not think this is the way to the heralds’ station.”  
“I do believe you are right.”  
“Nor any hospital I know of.”  
“You have a good sense of direction, Montjoy.”

Infuriatingly, the king continued in that vein for as long as they weaved their way through the city. It was far too late, confounded by Henry’s path through hidden back alleys and in and out of taverns, Montjoy finally realized for himself their destination even as they were walking through the nondescript and quiet back entrance, tall lavishly painted walls with sumptuous windows rising above their heads. Again, he halted, on the threshold, and this time the king, anticipating, kept a firm grip on his arm.

“This house— this— only—“ He found himself at an excruciating loss for words.  
“Only the king stays in this house?” Henry chuckled. “Yes I know that, herald. Technically untrue. I do believe my uncles are off in one or other of the wings.”  
“Your majesty—”  
“Oh don’t look so upset. Where else can I keep an eye on you except in my own house?”

They passed through the unseen underbelly of the house, the cellars and the kitchens, where Montjoy could tell from the nonchalance of the staff at the sight of their king that his secret passage in and out of the building was a relatively common affair. Some greeted him with small bows or curtseys, murmuring “Your majesty” as he swept by, all of them he acknowledged with a nod and a casual smile. _If the chronicler could see you now, he would think everything I said to be a raging lie. Except they weren’t, were they? Only facets of a whole that defies description…_

“From the look on your face I would suppose my royal cousin doesn’t know where his food comes from, let alone step foot in the kitchens.”

_Is this what you have made of your younger years, your wilder days?_

Compelled to defend his lord, the herald said, “The kitchens are not the best place for a prince.”

“On the contrary, the best food is to be found in the kitchens, where bread is still warm from the oven, and meat is still warm from the fire. And who should deserve the best food if not the prince?” The king laughed out loud at the herald’s disapproving expression. “And men say the French appreciate their food so much more than us English.”

*

_“My liege.”_

Charles sat alone in his private chapel, the easternmost room of his chambers, where the rising sun would filter through the stained glass windows and flood the dark paneling with an iridescent vision of God’s kingdom. At his beckoning, the herald approached, and knelt on one knee beside his sovereign. When his eyes had swiveled slowly from altarpiece to his herald, the king said distantly, “Sit, Montjoy, you are hurt.” Stubbornly, the herald shook his head, and denied it, as he would have with his last breath. One hand, heavy with rings, lined like a much older man, rested briefly on his cheek, his forehead, before returning the king’s lap. “You need not stand on ceremony with me,” said Charles.

“My liege,” said Montjoy, motionless.

The king heaved a sigh. “Tell me,” he said, and in plain terms, the herald related his encounter with the Duke of Burgundy. In the closed, still air, he made sure his voice did not waver, nor did the even tone falter for a single word, no matter what it cost him. A shadow fell across the monarch’s face, lending it another ten years, another moment of psychosis.

“We shall rebuke him,” Charles said, and solemnly, the herald bowed his head.

_And you will, and so, useless as the gesture is, it still means something to me, if no one else._

“Will we talk the Duke out of his defiance?”  
“I do not think so.”  
“And what of our dear Count Bernard?”  
“He appears calm, but inside he is furious. He will take a fight.”

The king subsided into a distracted silence. In the dim refracted luminescence, he seemed thin as paper, translucent, as if the light in crimson and emerald and azure shone through him. They said he had been howling down the hallways, like a wolf, but in this moment, it was inconceivable to the herald. He was an icon in gold and fine alabaster, a statue of his father, less the tall vigorous strength, less the warlike cunning. _And thus, nothing at all like his father._ They said he had been refusing to change his clothes, but in this moment, he was richly dressed, and still lean, still fit and healthy. _But they only hear the wolf, they only see the leper._  

“Let the prince decamp to Paris, but the Count shall remain here yet,” said the king finally, waving one hand to settle the issue. “Make him some excuse that shall quench his rage.” He smiled down at his herald, as if sharing some secret joke. “We shall yet see if our son can tame this beast with his sweet music.” His expression suggested a confidence in the prince’s ability that the herald did not share, but if anything, Montjoy still trusted implicitly in the keen intelligence behind the madness.

_If no one else, it still means something to me._

At the herald’s quick nod of understanding, the smile dissolved into familiar severity.

“More important,” said the king, “is what we shall say to Henry of England—”  

*

Henry steered the herald unerringly through carpeted corridors and into a room that overlooked a quiet interior garden, richly furnished in dark red and gold and purple. The mahogany furniture exuded that supreme arrogance and aura of discomfort only the oldest, most expensive collections dared to, and were carved back and front with leaping fantastic shapes. Only the candles moved, and then only minutely, in gentle unseen currents. With the windows closed, the room was pleasantly warm, the scent of spice and flowers lingering. Signs of human presence hovered around a worn chessboard neatly set up on a central table, next to an array of writing instruments and paper, assorted small weapons, a small stack of books. A smug ancient wine pitcher sat on a tray surrounded by matching accessories, softly steaming. The king’s presence had apparently been transmitted faster than his actual body, passed on in fierce whispers through the servant’s hallways, else he had made some secret gesture to a servant that the herald had not noticed. The doorway to the right seemed to lead into a library, its walls lined with countless closely packed books, and Montjoy posited the closed door to the left was a bedroom. It must have been one of the smaller rooms in the great connected house complex, but it was warm and inviting, and the view beautiful. The king deposited him in one of the chairs at the table, and indicated he should pour the wine with a gesture, as he went into the library.

Pouring wine in another man’s space was a surreal experience. Montjoy could not have described exactly, only in the muted competing feelings of being an intruder, out of place in some other soul’s perfectly placed environment, and yet strangely at ease, the effect of the room itself with its calm and understated luxury. He wondered whose room it was, but there was little indication. Surreptitiously, he investigated the contents of the topmost book, which appeared to him a lavishly decorated Book of Hours, its pages noticeably thumbed. Before he could read the next, Henry swept back into the room, empty-handed and grinning widely, a cause for some alarm. The king sat companionably in the chair beside him, and picked up both cups. Satisfied with their contents, he extended one. Nervous, the herald hesitated.

“Trust me,” Henry said.

*

“Trust me, herald,” said John of Burgundy, passing sentence in a grim, towering fury. “When I say I do not hold a grudge against you personally, nor your master.” He had crushed in one clenched fist a list of names, and in the other, Henry’s letter. He flung both violently into the fire and watched closely as they burned, eyes hooded and hungry. “We are all of us played for by the English king.”

“But this!” His voice rose like a roar, starting low and surging in volume, until the herald could feel the wind of its passing sweeping over him. “This is a slight that I cannot let go unpunished. I am nothing if not a fierce lover of my country, and let no man dare say otherwise! Safe conduct be damned! These brazen insinuations damn you.”

He had not received the herald’s message well, or decorously. Abruptly, he had been hissing, “You are not fit to speak of my brothers,” and abruptly, he had been screaming, “How dare you come into this tent and tell me they died so shamelessly!” In the onslaught, searing hot and freezing cold, impossible to predict, the herald stood his ground with weary, wearing calm. Eventually, the raging storm had subsided into something far more dangerous, this man still as clear ice, moments from shattering. He stood upon a vast frozen lake, and beneath the thin, transparent surface, the herald witnessed a savage vengeful bloodlust that made him shiver.

“Slander and injury,” said the Duke, “Ignorance and insolence. Who will bear this insult to me?”

“Since I spoke,” said Montjoy, who had always known it would come to this, “So I shall bear it.”

“Hah!” John sat heavily in his chair and looked down upon the herald with a withering wildfire smile, consuming him whole. “You will win yourself no sympathy from your master there, no reward for your loyalty.”

“I see no need for reward,” said the herald. “As for sympathy,” he shrugged lopsidedly, “I may yet have it.”

The Duke laughed aloud then, fierce and black and humorless, a moonlit graveyard howl at his expense. “Your master sends you into the lion’s den naked, bearing bloody meat and you martyr yourself for his _sympathy_?”

_If you do not understand me yet, my Lord, you never will._

“My Lord, I would not be naked,” he said, with the heady sensation of freefall, “But safe conduct is not what it used to be.”

 _There, the breaking ice, witness it._ It smashes into a million fragments, and those pieces fall at his feet, frosted, sharp, one last breath of ethereal winter that condemns him into the inferno.

"Insolent to the last. Very well. So be it.”

_*_

The herald cut off the swiftly surfacing memory, concentrating on the present, the room, the king, the cup, the warm wine. If Henry had seen it unfolding in his eyes, he kept any reaction well hidden behind an innocuous smile. Montjoy took the proffered cup. Henry took the other, and raised it with a smile.   

 “To your health, herald.”

“To yours, most Christian majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	6. In the Lion's Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... To have one last heart to heart.

 

 

  
  
Briton Riviere, Daniel in the Lions' Den, 1883

He knew first, behind the darkness of his eyes, a cool and soothing calm. The fires of fever had abated, leaving in its wake only the fresh silence after the storm, his head washed clear in a baptismal rain, his skin no longer raging hot and cold. Coming up to consciousness was as ponderous as a procession of bishops, each sense lighting up in its own time with new and exciting developments. He marked the absence of pain with delicious pleasure; its sharp and constant reminder swathed by gauze and dulled to a low, slow ache. He knew the comfort of a fiercely expensive bed and every pleasant curve of its gently undulating surface, generously gowned with the weighty folds of smooth, soft sheets. Though weak, he found old strengths returning, though pained, he no longer dreaded the rise and fall of every breath. Finally, he opened his eyes to a general gloom, and flickering candlelight from the adjoining room. Outside the percussive roar of strong rain beat down against glass panes, making it impossible to tell the time of day. He could not remember getting into bed, nor what he had been doing, nor where this place was, but like a fleeting moth, the light drew him inquisitively to the doorway.

Memory tensed like a sharply tugged cord. He remembered, and would have panicked except for the lethargy that lingered clinging on every muscle, inducing him to preternatural calm. He saw the king seated at the table, industriously writing, his hair in such disarray like the herald had never seen outside the raging tides of battle. Every movement of the pen was fierce and quick. He found himself watching the tip entranced as it scratched hypnotically across the rough surface.

_Is this truly the man who slit our throats at Agincourt? He is so beautiful and solemn, my God, why have you chosen England for your favored son and not France, were we not pious and devoted like all others? Are we poor sinful souls undeserving of a king as glorious as this one? What a treasonous line. My humblest apologies, my liege— the mad king they call you now, but at least before you were mad, you were beloved._

Without his crown, his sword and his surcoat of lions, Henry of England had no less force of presence, bereft of iconography his every movement was suffused with an energy that was solely and uniquely his. The herald wondered if the slightly humored set of his mouth meant he wrote a letter of insults, or of affection. As the dancing firelight played over hair and face the king seemed animated though he was still, caught in an instant of private absorption, his inner self exposed and vulnerable, the only sounds coloring the air the heavy rhythm of pouring rain and the thin scraping of quill on paper.

_See how he is bathed in gold by candlelight. Oh, Lord, if there is a message here I do not understand it. If there isn't, I pray you send one soon. I am lost and drowning in these conflicting truths._

It did not take long for Henry to sense his silent attention, and in turning, broke the spell with a pleased smile.

“Montjoy,” he said, “Why do you simply stand there?”  
“I did not wish to interrupt.” The herald gestured vaguely, all out of sorts in the strange situation.  
“Come.”

Even as he gestured for the herald to sit, the king rose and went quickly to the door, where he gave quiet orders to some waiting servant. Montjoy took the seat next to the king’s with the tentative air of someone testing new waters, uncertain of the temperature, the tides and the sharks beneath. If anything, the table had an even greater mess than he remembered. He saw the rich gleam of a thin bejeweled crown, carelessly discarded under rolls of papers, those in turn crushed down by a pair of metal-tipped gloves, and surrounded by numerous implements of writing. When the king returned, he did not take up his letter again but leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on the herald, his demeanor serious.

“How do you feel?” Henry asked.  
“Much better, your majesty.”  
“You look better,” he smiled, “If not quite a vision of good health, at least these have faded somewhat.”

Henry raised his hand to the herald’s face, and this time Montjoy held rigidly still as royal fingertips brushed by his bruises and contusions, tracing a line of color from his forehead to his jaw down the left side of his face, and finally, rested on his undamaged shoulder. There, the king seemed to hesitate momentarily, before removing it with a casual wave.

_His touch is so tentative now that he knows. He speaks softer than usual, as if I were made of glass and liable to shatter at loud sounds._

“Please, no formalities. The air in here is stifling enough, the whole day nothing but endless rain.”  
“As you say.”  
"My captains assure me tomorrow after the storm the weather will be fine, perfect for the crossing.”

Montjoy frowned, his carefully memorized calendar turning up something disturbing. _Tomorrow we sail for England? Far too soon for the promised date. Isn’t it?_

“Tomorrow? But that would mean—” Disbelief crept into his voice, spawning distress and confusion, to which the king offered only a mild grin as recompense.  
“Yes, you’ve been asleep a few days,” Henry said.  
“That’s impossible!”  
“I gather you were tired.” The king casually pushed him a cup across the table. It dove through the billowing parchment tides and shunted aside the milling odds and ends with a faint wooden scrape.  
“It cannot be.” He rubbed his eyes with one hand, willing the waking world to reassert itself. “I would not be so— I do not remember falling asleep.”  
“Relax, Montjoy, you did not oversleep, nor outstay your welcome.”

_Trust me, he says. So openly, so honestly. And I did. Now he has seen the full extent of my injuries, crept up upon me and taken down my defenses so thoroughly without my permission. How should I trust him after this?_

He picked up the cup and considered his rippling reflection, but the clear water imparted him no truths except one dawning realization, clawing its way viciously to him through a quicksand morass. Horrorstruck as it emerged howling, the herald voiced his suspicions in a hollow gasp.

“You drugged the wine?”  
“Perhaps.”  
“But— why?”

“Look at all your wounds, Montjoy, not a single one of which you deserved. Is it not true I am the cause of them? I should be a sinful wretch in the eyes of God if I did not answer for these my actions.”

_My God, you had no such qualms at Agincourt, why do you seem so worried now? Why do your eyes express sorrow and your touch guilt? Friends and foes, both so keen on casual confinement and liberties with my person, and this ... this one by far the most successful, several days— Dear God, I shall not survive this constant attention. Where from this intimacy? What roots this familiarity and possessiveness? Did I accept more than physical protection when I donned a simple shirt of mail? It had no visible emblem or arms but now I see, plain as it was, it is as damning as a herald's tabard._

“I do not think so.” He responded offhandedly, shirking the view of his own twisting thoughts, his tone edged with wry humor and his gaze unfocused and far away. “All this was reaped in the service of duty. Since unavoidable, so be it.”

 _After all, you did not force me into taunting the grieving man. Like taunting the raging storm. It was nothing short of my own hubris._ One hand fidgeted absently with the edge of a bandage around his wrist, protruding beyond the too-short sleeve, teasing out the separate strands from its soft weave. _I do not remember this... did I tie this small, neat knot myself?_

“It was caused by no one but myself,” he said firmly, “and deserving of no one’s concern, least of all your majesty’s.”

Henry’s eyes flashed with momentary light, as if catching the reflection from a lightning bolt beyond the panes of glass, and he caught up the herald’s wrist, preventing him from any further unraveling. Startled, Montjoy refocused on that point of contact, beholding it as if occurring in a dream, then glancing up at the king’s expression, he recognized a zealous protective ownership, the roots of which an enduring mystery. Henry spoke with fierce conviction, every word as certain as prayer.

“Never say you do not deserve my concern. You are one of my own, and I will look after you.”

_Do not look at me like that, I beg you. I will not be fooled by the softness of the lion's fur. I will not forget its hunger._

“How can that be?” Montjoy shook his head. “I am a herald of the House of Valois. We should be enemies.”  
“If the Dauphin called upon you to take up arms in assassination, would you?”  
"What?”

Henry laughed cheerfully at his expression, waving away the question, eyes alighting on something else, something far distant. Abruptly, the king’s demeanor changed, growing less certain, his rage ebbing and casting his face in a softer light, and he released the herald’s wrist, pinning him instead with a searching stare. Beneath it, Montjoy shifted with unease.

“And if the House of Valois is fallen?”

The question startled the herald, who struggled to keep up with the stride of Henry’s mind. This was no muddied tent in corpse-strewn field, yet eerily he felt the memory rising whole, the pure confusion, and the crippling guilt.

“The fall of Valois—,” he said, distracting himself, “You mean the fall of France? The greatness of your victory surpasses all that has come before it. But France shall not fall. I believe so, or I am lost.”

Henry sighed, patient yet clearly desiring more. “You may call me England, but in truth I am not,” he said. “My country is greater than myself alone, for the glory of God its men achieved the victory at Agincourt. There I was only one more man amongst many. Is not France also larger than its ruling House, greater than the sum of its parts?”

_It was not any man who commanded the arrows to fall, and they fell like rain. It was not any man who commanded men to die, and they went like lambs to slaughter._

Henry’s words fell like stones into a mirrored pond, quietly shattering, their wake as ripples through the still calm.  
“Is France my cousin alone? His sons? His bickering lords and the gay pennants of his knights?” He reached forward and touched his fingers to the herald’s chest, over his heart. “Or is it there in the soldier and the servant and the citizen? Is it here in you, herald?”

_Is this the way you shall take France over? Some of us you kill, some you take prisoner and some... you steal away for yourself... killer, captor, thief... No, I shall not be tempted by the lion's offer, a lion has no good intentions._

“I do not understand,” the herald said, frowning.    
“Is France composed of castles and courts? Or is it in the land, the fields, the farms? The roads on which you travel and the cities in which you sleep?”

The question did not contribute to the herald’s comprehension, and that much was clear from his strained expression. England’s king had no years on him, yet how strongly the herald felt the child in the conversation, slow and dimly inherited, trying to wrap a small piece of perception around an idea too large to encompass, each time seeing only a fraction of the whole.

“You speak of everything in its borders, every man in its service,” said the herald, eyeing Henry doubtfully.  
“And more besides, every thought and every desire, every history, every prayer.”  
“Yes, we may have all these, but the king must bind it all together— he makes the country in his image.”  
“Any fool can sit a throne and wear a crown but he will not be a king, only a tyrant.”  
“You name my liege fool and tyrant?” The herald’s quiet anger clenched his hands and charred his words black and bitter. “He is none of these.” Henry showed him a mournful smile, shaking his head.

 “If the House of Valois falls, my lords will tear France apart like so many wolves in a pack with no lead, each to his own territory, every man for himself— Who else shall matter in this scheme of things?”

 “I shall,” said Henry. “I shall take the throne of France, and take it wholly. You do not believe that I can take his place, my rightful inheritance? That I have not the strength to hold your country together, and govern it as I have governed mine? Look to England now, Montjoy, and judge me for yourself, it is my testament.”

Troubled, Montjoy fell silent, and in the lull they realized from the deafening quiet that the rain no longer thrummed and the darkness outside the windows was not of storm but of true night. Absent the constant surf, the room echoed with distant dripping and the soft stirring of each man's breath, the king's deep and even, the herald's hoarse and ragged, catching ever so often, only to begin again its laborious cycle having caused a spasm of shared pain in Henry's heart.

“You wish me to renounce my House, my masters. I will sooner relinquish my life.”  
“Are there words for what lies in your heart?” he asked softly, “What moves you to devotion to duty? With what angels do you walk again and again into the lion’s den?”  
“I have no need for angels. Heralds are safe in courts the world over, even those of infidels and heretics.”  
“Yet here you are, cut and bruised, abused despite your white baton.”  
“This was different.”  
“You knew it would happen.”  
“I did.”  
“And yet you walked right into it.”  
“Yes.”  
“Why?”  
“Because it was my duty.”

As the herald returned to picking fitfully at his bindings, Henry reached forward and took each hand gently in his own, their palms upturned like a benediction. He remembered the rough lacerations he had seen on the herald's wrists, the skin torn up so even the English doctor had shaken his head sympathetically, and those only the first of a long drawn-out list. Boiling rage lingered in his gut unexpressed, fanned into fury by Montjoy's quiet acquiescence to his maltreatment as if his lords had some God given right to abuse their own vassal.

“You do not know if the angels will come,” Henry asked, knowing the answer, “Do you still enter the lion’s den?”  
“Yes, of course.”  
“Why?”  
“Because it is my duty,” he said, frustrated beyond reason, all at sea in strange unrecognizable waters, simple truths shimmering like mirages over the horizon. “Just as the knight has duty to arm himself, and the priest to pray for his congregation. If knights did not ride into battle in the face of pain and death, there would be no one to defend the country. I am not so different from that, though I am weak and bear no arms, still I try my best.”

There was a brief pause as Montjoy looked down at their hands, then up at the king.

“I do not follow your majesty’s mind,” he said, giving himself up. “All I know is— I try my best. I do my duty for House and country.”

England’s king smiled, solemn and sorrowful, as if to say the herald had brushed by his truth so fleetingly the light had pooled in his hands for just a second, illuminating his spirit.

“The throne of France is rightfully mine,” Henry said with finality, “and thereby you, one of my own.”

Montjoy’s expression made it clear he did not consider the matter settled, and he shook his hands free. 

“How can I acknowledge that in good faith? No Frenchman can. You claim as your own all of France who is not of rank and title.”  
“And I do.”  
“You cannot claim us on English grounds of right.”  
“To my House the ancient right, the stronger claim, my just inheritance the throne of France. It is by God's divine justice, I claim you as one of my own.”

_I shall sooner recognize my liege, be he a madman, than God’s invisible divine justice._

Montjoy recognized the familiar arguments he had born back and forth across the channel for weeks ad nauseam, wearing down his horse and wearing out his saddle as both sides refused to recognize the other's logic and neither side willing to back down gracefully. It had been a pointed exercise in futility, and he did not want to revive it here, in the face of the king's vehemence.

“Your majesty,” he said tiredly, “You so command’s England’s love already. What matters France?”

Abruptly, Henry rose to his feet, his hand clenched on the edge of the table and his lips pressed tight. Anger petrified his aspect all in sharp angles, in smooth marble, and he considered the herald with a newfound imperial formality. Montjoy stood as well, as courtesy demanded, and returned the king's gaze calmly. He was well aware he had roused to rage the somnolent lion previously content to play with its victim, but something age-old and world-weary had spoken through him.

“I will have France because it is mine. What is a king if not his right to rule? If my inheritances are not whole, neither am I. I will be as that foolish man who does not pursue the thief in his sight.”  
“But in pursuit of your cause, you break apart that which you desire.”  
“Did I not offer peace and treaty again and again, to which your prince replied with scorn and mockery. Did I not offer single combat once those were foregone? Tell me how else shall I pursue my right, if not by force of arms?”  
“That which made my country great is lost to force of arms. If you achieve the throne of France, it will be a poor and sorry thing.”

The king was a tower of ice, sheer and unforgiving, lonely across a great impassable gulf.

“Since unavoidable,” Henry said, “So be it.”  
“Then I can say nothing for my country that would move you.”  
“Nothing will move me from that which is my right, Montjoy.”

The herald glanced away, his expression rendered neutral. 

“I apologize, your majesty, it was not my place.”  
“No, you spoke the truth. By my hand, France will suffer while I am denied.”  
“Suffer we did,” Montjoy whispered, back on the corpse-strewn field, back beneath the whistling arrows. His quiet sorrow quenched the king’s rage.

“I would have it any other way,” Henry said with a sigh. “They who fought bravely for their country will surely gain the heavenly kingdom. In St Paul's, I will hold a Sunday mass for all who were lost that day, English and French. All of England will pray for them. Will you ride with me then?”  
“As Vercingetorix did at Caesar’s triumph? Many will ride with you thus.”

Henry seemed to shudder at the herald’s comment, knitting together his brows and lips. He left the tableside to pace by windows darkened with water, his eyes looking but not seeing the bent and heavy silhouettes of the bare garden shrubs. Immediately as he saw a shadow cloud the king's face, Montjoy felt regret, the words too effective, too hurtful for an honest man to take pride in. _Do you find yourself poorer for the comparison, most Christian king? There was no conqueror like Caesar, ever after. Yet what you crave is justice above all, what you abhor is tyranny._

Driven by impulse, against all custom, he went to Henry’s side and laid a beseeching hand on his arm. The unexpected touch, tentative, reverent, froze the king out of surprise, his eyes wide and his face open. It was not for vassals to lay hands on their monarch, let alone this enemy herald, always so tense, so aloof and so constantly decorous in his aspect.

“Your majesty, I did not mean to offend. Dear God, I am a poor and ungrateful guest, responding so your hospitality. Forgive me.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed but it was his tone that caused the herald to back away uncertainly, and the king advanced upon him.

“You are quick to defend my spirits, Montjoy. You did not balk at my anger yet you jump up at my distress. Why?”

England’s king revealed a grin that made Montjoy sweat, wide and nefarious like some masked rogue at a masquerade, demanding a dance from a lady with as much mischief as he demanded honor’s satisfaction from her date. He held up his empty hands, and deferred wordlessly.

“Go ahead and call me murderer, name me all those things I know are jeered in the eaves of your court and your city streets. I will not take offense, I promise.”

The herald's composure wavered, a slender taper’s flame in the wind of the king’s approach. He suddenly realized, observing Henry, that they were both wearing something much the same in shape and make, and of the highest quality, then cringed to think the king had taken from his own wardrobe once again. The wide cut of the shoulders, and the hem and sleeves, slightly too short, all damning telltale evidence.  

“Come on, herald! You have much experience in insults, with a master such as yours. Convey to me the gist of what is thought in the mean Parisian taverns. I will expect as much once I am in my throne of France.”

Montjoy came up short against the edge of the table, and back against the proverbial wall he finally responded.

“How shall I insult your majesty in your own house? Against all courtesy and hospitality?”  
“Yet, as your host, I require it.”  
“I will not.”  
“Why?”  
“It is not merited.”  
“Is it not? I left thousands of your countrymen dead in the mud behind my army.”

Now Henry was close enough to place his hands on the table, trapping the herald, leaning in to force out an answer to his satisfaction, his voice immutable, insistent. Montjoy did not dare to touch him again, incurring such disastrous result the first time, and folded his arms tightly instead, turning his head away so the king’s regard might wash over him, and leave him standing at the end of it.

“I brought your throne low in the space of a morning. I fanned the flames of civil war into a raging inferno. Do I not merit a single insult?”

His silence was his shield, his eyes downcast, but Henry was too near, burning too bright, searing the breath in his lungs with a close, physical pain.  

"I have thrown you into the lion’s den with letters aimed to betray and ruin and here you stand, worser for it, and you have not a single thing to say?”  
“I do not.”  
“And did you swear as those men strung you up and beat you bloody? Did you curse me every lash and every blow?”  
“I did not.”  
“Why?”

He dared to stare up at the king, and into the fierce hunger, into the arching void of the sky, said nothing at all. In the sudden silence, they were interrupted by a timid knock on the door. Reluctantly, Henry backed away, allowing the herald to breathe again. At his quiet command, the door was opened by a servant girl balancing a loaded tray in one hand with precarious grace. She brought it to the center of the room where, balking at the mess on the table, her gaze swept helplessly along the endless paraphernalia of kingship. Henry chided her gently to put it down anywhere, but she only stared at him in a wide-eyed wordless plea, so bemused, he moved to make free space, gathering together papers and things so recklessly their subsequent piles threatened to tip over as soon as his hands had left them.

In her patient exasperation and his amused response Montjoy felt the touch of casual familiarity, as if this scene had been repeated many times before in exactly the same fashion. Perhaps the king was wont to eat at his desk, his work still stacked haphazardly around him. If so that seemed a poor and tiresome life for any monarch, let alone one as covered in glory as England's king. Her burden set down, the girl flashed her king a shy smile, and was gone through the door before Henry could say another word. He turned back to the herald instead, his earlier ferocity now muted by the distraction.

“Well, herald?”  
“I do not know what else your majesty would like me to say.”  
“Is it so hard to simply to say what you think?”  
“Whenever I do, I always seem the worser for it,” he pointed out wryly.

Henry’s solemn train of thought was not so easily derailed.

“Put down your office for a single heartbeat,” he said, “and I will put down mine, so we may speak our minds openly.”

But feeling along the table with his right hand, the herald swept up the crown that had been exposed in the confusion, and placed it gently on the head of the king.

“Your majesty is always in office.”

Amused, irritated, Henry took the crown in his hands, stroking its smooth surface and its bright beveled gems with the palest of interests.

“This thing,” he said, weighing it without curiosity. “What use is it, if I cannot even get truth from you?”

“I have no satisfactory truths to offer— but that— that is the love of an entire country.”

“And what use is that to me, dear Montjoy?” he exclaimed. “It is the love of a golden thing, a throne, a construct, not of me— it is liquid now and will run off my dead body as water once I am gone.”

“I do not think there is nothing to love other than a golden crown.”

The king looked up, and the herald looked away. In the ensuing heavy silence the rain began again, a mild tapping on the window panes, and the door was almost thrust off its hinges by an insistent pounding. Henry was muttering fell imprecations as he skirted the table to reproach the interruption just as he seemed to be getting somewhere he wanted, but immediately as he cracked open the door he was bullied back by the Duke of Exeter marching forward with dagger drawn, face grim and eyes wary. Though his broad shoulders were hunched as if expecting attack, his imposing frame filled the room instantly, savage suspicion boiling off the surface. As he spotted the herald, taking stock of his disheveled appearance, pale appearance and borrowed clothing, then gaze flickering to the king, then back again, he shocked both king and herald out of their skin with a thunderous growl of confirmation.

“I knew it!”

Henry reacted quickly, reaching out a hand to stay his Uncle’s advance, but the Duke struck faster than him, and much faster than Montjoy, who had frozen in shock. He caught up the herald by the front of his shirt, thrust him backwards onto the table, and held the dagger to his throat. Blood welled up thickly around its sharp edge. Amidst the soft cough of crumpling paper and clattering dishes, he growled, “What are you? Bastard spy or assassin? By God, answer me now before I cut your throat.”

“Uncle! Have you gone mad?” Henry put one restraining hand on the old soldier’s arm, but his touch was shrugged off angrily.  
“My liege, you surely have been bewitched by this French charlatan. You are in utmost danger of your secrets and your life.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Exeter drove the dagger’s tip into Montjoy’s freely bleeding shoulder, and twisted, snarling “Last chance Frenchman, what do you say?” In breathless agony, the herald bit down on his lip to keep from screaming, and heedless of its edge, grabbed the blade with one hand. The Duke bore down on him, and it was like resisting a glacier, inexorable and excruciating.

_I say your king drugged me and changed me into his clothes— dear God, are you having a joke at my expense?_

Henry took up his sword from its stand and drew it from the sheath with a dark expression. “My Lord of Exeter, put away your weapon or so help me God I will strike you down for treason and contempt.” He matched the Duke stare for stare, for a single heartbeat, and Exeter backed down scowling, shoving his blade back into its cover with a wet, sickening sound. As the pressure was lifted, Montjoy slid thankfully to the floor, bent over and breathing raggedly, one white-knuckled hand pressed to his shoulder. Light-headed, he tried to stop the bleeding from the arrow shot, and not noticing the deep cut on his palm, painted himself gory.

Henry raised his sword fractionally, and confronted his Uncle, who returned his gaze level and undaunted. Some fell wind was howling in the herald’s ears as it streamed into the narrow pass between Scylla and Charybdis, one darkly roiling crushing force, its mysterious core utterly destructive, the other all bloodthirsty fangs and slavering jaws, monstrous, massive. He put one hand to his ear, as if he could block out the screaming, but it was coming from inside his head. _Not every man gets to choose the manner of his death. Quick and bloody or slow and crushing?_

“Explain to me, Uncle,” said Henry, sharper than the sword in his hand, and fearsomely calm. “How you saw fit to assault my guest in my presence? How you even thought to enter my chamber with a naked blade? What of the Devil’s make caused you to hold me in such utter _contempt_?”

“The true Devil’s work is here,” replied Exeter with complete conviction, “In this Frenchman, in your room, your bed— your shirt!”

As the Englishmen glared at each other in rising heat, Montjoy rose up off the floor and ran, as best he could, though knowing how it would look, though knowing nothing but the breathtaking shock of each step’s impact. In piercing pain and breathless hollowness, he pelted past the king, out the door and down the corridor with drunken crashing abandon, following in the footsteps of hazy memory, taking both King and Duke by surprise. It was long moments before Henry regained the presence of mind to dash after him, and the Duke even longer after, by which time he had lost sight of both men.

Montjoy made it all the way to the ground floor without pause, scattering horrified servants in his wake, whereupon a wrong turn in confusion and panic led him not into the street but into the chilly darkness of the interior garden. Lit by dim moonlight and the blurred glow of candles strained through ruddy glass high above, the delicate stems of bare bushes and thorny evergreens were differentiated only by their layers of clinging shadow, and hearing the footsteps of the king right behind him, the herald lost himself amongst them.

“Montjoy, wait!”

Barefoot and breathing heavily, the herald sank to one knee beneath the cover of those shrubs still robed with leaves and the gentle curtain of freezing rain, but once he had entered the garden, Henry had regained his customary silent step, and only from his loud admonishment could the herald guess where the king was.

“This is ridiculous!”

Tiring quickly, sick with pain and fast losing feeling in exposed fingers and toes, Montjoy tried to circle around the source of the sound towards the doorway he had entered from, beyond which in the other direction was surely the strange safety of the city street, but as he turned the corner of a hedge he registered Henry’s shadowed presence at exactly the same moment he was seen. In an instant, he backed away blindly, violently, tripping in his haste. The inevitable plunge to hard stone was briefly arrested as Henry lunged forward and grabbed him, but momentum and his slippery footing was enough to carry them both heavily to the ground, where drenched through and shivering cold, Montjoy was stunned to hear, of all things, Henry start laughing, rich and musical, irresistibly joyful.

“I hope you’re happy now. You have done your country proud because we are both going to die of the cold. You have, truthfully, the greatest disregard for your health of any person I have ever met.”

Henry seemed content to lie on the ground in the pose he had fallen, his face couched on one arm, the other thrown over the herald’s chest, and in the wintery numbness that dissolved the pain, Montjoy relaxed, his face upturned to the gentle watery caress that could, for a single heartbeat, wash away all bonds of duty and office, his blood mingling in puddles to stain both their clothes.

“I'm afraid the sight of the Duke incites most Frenchmen to panic.”  
“Now that is a paean of truth.”  
“Majesty, humbly I ask for your leave.”  
“Your request is refused. I’ve had your belongings transferred and your horse billeted with mine for loading. You will sail with me in the morning.”  
“Kidnap and torture, your majesty? An absolute outrage in the civilized world.”  
“Civilized world? You’ve entered the lion’s den, Montjoy, and in here I am your only angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 4


	7. Reach out and Resist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rain makes everything so unbearably clear.

_Now I see your heart clear._ Never mind the soft winter rain that stings the eyes and sinks through cloth and skin spreading the icy numbness of the gradually dying. Never mind the blind binding darkness, and the stormy starless sky. Henry’s grip on his shirt was a searing brand, a traitor’s mark, and it was a Philosopher’s stone, warm with the infinite.

“I cannot interpret dreams nor predict the future, nor convey the word of the Lord,” Montjoy said, from beneath a distant melancholy. “Angelic grace is sorely wasted on my protection.”

 _Clear across the weeping sky. Now its pure sincerity burns_. Never mind the paving stones that arch stiffly into bruised flesh, shaping the nature of pain to its selfish contours. Never mind the dark rivulets that strip warmth and feeling from the face and body, tears from a river with no source, blood from a heart beating empty. Henry was watching him with a secret, sideways smile, as if he knew otherwise.  

“I would not martyr for the Lord,” he said, “if given the opportunity.”

 _Burns this aching soul. Now I wish you were a cold and cruel conqueror, deserving only contempt, requiring only courtesy._ Never mind even the host of hurts that whisper in and out of every nerve, the noisy clamoring multitude of injury. Never mind the memories forged in black and breathless madness, as the iron tip touches bone, as the leather whip touches skin. Henry did not disdain the winter rain or the hard garden ground, instead he smiled like there was no other in the world more pleasing to him.

“But for my liege,” he said, putting one hand against his heart, and there, bleeding his commitment scarlet into his soaking shirt. “I go willingly. I want not for angels.”  
“And yet you ran before my Uncle.”  
“Ha, Yes.” The herald smiled through a bleak memory of bare blade and twisting steel, “Your scorn rightly shames me. Let me now find the good Duke and give him his satisfaction.”  
“Leave him,” Henry said. He turned the herald’s hand up to the sky, and in his palm raindrops pooled murky and streamed off crimson, washing the cut from thumb to wrist, hardening the king’s eyes. “He is a loyal fool coming to foolish conclusions. He shall not have you.”  
“Your majesty is too courteous.”  
“And you are as formal and distant as an enemy. Is that all I am to you?”

 _Courtesy that tastes like hypocrisy. Now I know. Now I am certain._ Never mind one hundred years of bitter bloodshed. Never mind six thousand bodies left in shallow mud.

 _Now I am lost._ In the heart’s uproar and confusion now raise a slender column of certainty, fluted with delicate tremors of disbelief but standing firm against it, a base upon which to build a temple of adoration. There in the detail of its capital, carve gentle leaves of aching need entwined with attraction slowly imposing shape and order upon ephemeral emotion. Whether he would have it or not, it was now formed and cannot be unformed, at once lively and organic, growing, at once ancient and eternal, calling. It calls plaintively for an elegant colonnade, a forest of its brothers tall and straight supporting sculpted panes dedicated to Mars, to Aphrodite, flanking a deep portico, leading to a sacred space within which place—

 _Enough, enough. This weight is only burden that cannot be let go and this beauty only self-inflicted pain._ _It is a temple to a false god, whose worship only treason brings._

With his eyes closed, and the only sound the grey patter of falling rain, he can make believe he speaks only to the empty air, to the dark soundless places, and it brings him courage.

“You brought me here into the lion’s den. I had no say in it. Will you hold me to ransom for my safety, as He did His prophet Daniel?”

_Do you think surrounded by lions, I will need you more? I fear the lions less than the angel._

It is Henry’s turn to fall silent as the question strikes a seam of uncertainty buried within the bedrock of his confidence. He makes a movement to reply but stops short, then begins again, only to quiet, as if again and again responses come to his head smooth and perfect and yet beneath their skin he finds them ugly, bruised and crude. They leave him empty-handed.

Montjoy turned his head to seek his own answers from Henry’s steady gaze, but in the clear blue eyes that pierce the shifting rain, as the last word sinks away, a helpless need draws out the herald in a hushed and tender whisper. “I am already as close a servant to your wishes as I can be,” he said.

 _He smiles like he has won all over again, that strong careless smile that beholds ten thousand mounted knights with ease._ Henry’s hand then lax now clenched tightly on his shirt, pulling him closer, his intent so pure and simple and free of reservation that the herald envies it, desires it, but he resists. In the twilight iridescent with possibility, he resists.

“Wait,” he breathed.  

A moment of indecision stretches languidly its sleepy limbs in frozen time, and Montjoy races ahead of the marching beat, through a familiar labyrinth of loyalties, searching for the exit. _The same outcome, always the same._ His gaze was desperate now for understanding, his heart pounding the fierce beat of emotion’s outrage at logic’s defiance and his body shaking with the warring forces of internal conflict as Henry pulls him as close as he had on his knees at Agincourt.

Intently, he wrapped his hand around the king’s, fervent as a drowning man’s grasp, but it is the despairing refutation of the drowning man who has thrown himself from the bridge.

_Again I say too much, I speak my mind and provoke when I should refuse and at every moment I am betrayed by this uncontrollable need, rooted in I know not what unconscious treachery. It cannot be allowed to rule my head— I will not lose to something I cannot even articulate._

He opened Henry’s fingers and drew back from the king, turning away. Henry hesitated, doubting what he saw and questioning his judgment, for a single heartbeat, and Montjoy could see the king was about to say something momentous, to make plain his intent, or to ask a question that could not be answered without cracking irrevocably some pillar upon which the entire world was held up. _Start from scratch to redefine everything that I believe in? For you I will have to abandon everything that I am built on._

“You misunderstand me,” he said, before Henry could speak, softly and fractured with irresolvable conflict.

 _You are the King of England,_ he wanted to shout, as if it will ward off yearning like a word of power, but it was powerless, and hopeless. _I am a herald of France,_ he wants to whisper, as if it could set him back on the long road home, but that too had faded into some forgotten sunset.

“Do I?” Henry asked.  
“What you see is a traitor,” said the herald, in a clear, aching voice. “But I am not one.”

Henry clenched his hands, as he reconciled what he wanted to do, and what he could, then opened them again, flat and beseeching, to catch the icy motes of rain. His smile then is a sweet curve of understanding, flattened with sadness but held up at the corners by an unrelenting confidence. His left hand is a benediction on the herald’s shoulder, hushing him gently. He subsided with grace, but the determination in his eyes was stronger than ever, and Montjoy could not bring himself to meet them, as searching as they are, as pure as a pilgrim’s.

_He has not misunderstood. He has come upon the subject, and faced it directly. Now he knows what he saw. Now he is certain. And all that resists him is the reason of an honest man._

_He is not daunted by fate or logic, and why should he be? They seem to be seated in his hand like die to be thrown. Dear Lord in Heaven, all that resists him is undermined by this starving soul._

Solemnly, Henry stood, and supporting the herald with utmost care, led him into the shelter of the adjoining hallway. Creaking floors and muted calls betrayed the movements of servants searching for their king, and in the distance, the muffled bellowing of the Duke penetrated a number of walls, but Henry ignored them blithely.

*

“Duty, loyalty, propriety— what fearsome specters bind us,” he said, embracing the herald. “Poor emotion must quail before them because somewhere out there our every action has been prescribed in text and proscribed otherwise, codified before we are born and set in stone after we have left. “  
“We are lost in chaos otherwise.”  
“Dear God in Heaven, is there nothing more to life? Nothing between the cold ink and the dead thoughts of those who have no feeling for the role itself? Give me more than that, Herald, more than authority’s yoke and duty’s burden to live for, to look forward to. Give me something that I own, not as a king but as a person. Give me _something_.”  
“Cast your eye on an Englishman, who shall give you everything he is, and God shall not despise him as a traitor nor punish him for it.” Montjoy shrank back and turned his head away as he spoke, expecting censure, expecting royal rage. “I cannot stand much more of His disapproval.”

Silent and oddly serene, Henry pulled back the herald’s right sleeve, and turn by deliberate turn unwrapped the soaking bandages. Montjoy held his breath as he worked, and tried with little success to stop his hands from trembling. First one wrist, then the other was exposed to flickering candle light, and the stained strips discarded as the king held up both his arms, taking care not to touch the wounds, but turning them firmly towards him for attention. It was painful for the herald to see, the physicality breaking down the denial that held back the pain and his skin crawling with agony, he had to look away.

“Do you think this is the work of God?”

His searing silence was consent enough for Henry, whose voice had all the sure certainty of a glacier’s movement through solid stone.

“He is not so cruel. This is the work of man. Of arrogant men treating you unfairly.”

Montjoy raised his head, a bleak conviction in his black expression. “Cruel? He is the cruelest being there is,” he said bitterly. The king’s fingers made white impressions on his skin, so strongly was he pulling back against their grasp, struggling to regain himself with all the gasping desperation of a netted fish.

“His cruelty is infinite. One by one, He strikes us down in thousands. He struck down my Lords for the sin of their pride, and you were his agent— his Champion in it. He came for our blood at Agincourt and made a great sea of it.”

“The _man_ who caused this committed a crime, Montjoy. You did not deserve it. Let the princes and lords bicker. You, of all people, are blameless.”

“No, your Majesty is,” said the herald, suddenly emphatic, a delirious smile stealing over him. “God’s Divine Grace. God’s messenger. Now I see His message clear. I have renounced Him before. Now His retribution comes.” Near wild with the realization, he struggled in Henry’s grip so insistently he tore open the lacerations around both wrists, but the king only tried to hold him closer.

_Now I see He plays a cruel joke on me. He will not make a traitor of me yet. I will thrash it out to the last. I will resist it to the last._

“Why must He try us in fire?” he whispered harshly, looking for answers in the painted ceiling, its false golden stars twinkling in poor imitation of celestial splendor, mocking his miniscule understanding of God’s nature. _He burns all our petty spirits. He sets all our hearts to flame. In the crucible, we lose everything._ “Speak no more of God, He only finds me wanting.”  

“Stop,” Henry says steadily, “Stop it. What is this wild and raging guilt? This hatred of God?”

Montjoy grimaced at every word, and shook his head, mute, heartsick, defiant with a screeching feverish edge, but Henry would not release him no matter how hard he wrestled. They were struggling so violently now that any passerby would have thought them to be fighting in earnest, but the king who had fought in the bloody surging press of hand to hand for hours did not relinquish the herald a single inch. Like a seizing man, Henry held him down, and all his energy beat like the rain against the open sea, sinking away without a trace.

“Tell me,” said Henry, patiently, infinitely so. A mountain to withstand the ages, a bottomless chasm to pour away the bitterness.

“No,” said Montjoy, soundlessly, exhausted. Into the space where madness consumes itself whole, reason returns like a scavenger, to make something out of the broken remains. Painstakingly, he calms himself. He puts himself together piece by aching piece, and seals the gaps with molten pain. Pain as he clenches his slashed hand, as he flexes his gouged shoulder and stretches his shredded skin. The pain scorches and cauterizes, a fierce cleansing fire, purging through the cracks his hysteria, leaving him hollow and so unbearably clear.

“You claim you are no martyr, yet you treat yourself so callously,” Henry said. “You are so deliberate in your punishment, like a Job wielding the knife on himself. It pains me to see it.”

He hunched his shoulders and set his face blank. Now that he does not pull away he feels the shiver at Henry’s fingertips, he sees the translucent trails of winter rain down each cheek, renewed by the occasional drop that falls from his soaking fringe. He commits his heartache to a cold flame, but it does not burn cleanly.

“You think the worst of me,” he said. _Because I lost myself, just for a moment. Just one moment._ “Yet I am lucid, as I have ever been. I am aware. I shall take care of myself. Please, let me go.” He put his head down like a penitent, but Henry raised it again with one hand.  
“You are being stubborn. These are not injuries that will simply fade away.”  
“Your majesty, I may not be a knight nor can I bear arms with any skill, yet still you should not look down on me thus. Am I not equally deserving of your respect?”  
“My concern is not the same thing as contempt.”  
“Your majesty, your concer—” A fit of violent coughing strikes hard. His whole body shakes with tremors until tense and racked through he has to bend over to resist them, and Henry wraps his arms around him, steadying him against the shaking until it passes.

Grimly, Henry observed the lean weakness, the shirt already small in fit, hanging loosely where healthy flesh should fill it, and streaming down the herald’s fingers as he covers his mouth and gasps for air, brilliant streaks of fresh blood. _Enough of this, before it kills him. He will have duty before himself, above all else. I do not know a knight so charged with devotion, let alone a herald, and I know many knights who would abandon duty for a single span of my attention._

“Enough. It is enough that I command it.”

Henry settled the herald’s arm over his shoulders and took his weight without another word. As he stepped forward, Montjoy could not but follow and they went in tandem through blurry, spinning hallways. Vainly, the herald resisted his support, but it was nothing more than an enervated touch of his hand, quickly subsumed in heavy liquid coughs, and wholly ignored by Henry. Even more unwelcome, some unburnt, surviving part of his spirit gloried in the closeness of the king, his rain-drenched scent, the calluses on his palms, his determination as he half-dragged half-carried his burden through the carpeted corridors of his own luxurious house.

*

In the middle of the night, the man opened the door in his sleeping clothes, but he did not seem surprised to see his visitors. Instead he has readied a sigh and a knowing look, awakened by the commotion long before his king could come knocking and from experience guessing the reason. He greeted his sovereign tiredly, and cast a doctorly eye over his erstwhile patient, noting the man’s paler appearance, noting injuries old and new. Both were dripping steadily onto the carpet, the former trembling almost imperceptibly with the cold, the latter shaking noticeably from his tension.

“I apologize for the late hour, Thomas.”  
“Not at all, my liege.”

With deft but firm hands he divorced Henry of his burden and gently pushed him away. Henry gestured impatiently, but the physician was unrelenting, years of service giving him the authority and the experience to countermand his lord.

“Henry, please,” he said. “Go change your clothes or you’ll be for it too and I will be the guilty party. I guarantee you this man will not suddenly perish before you can make yourself warm and dry.”

His critical sarcasm coated a stern final glance that chased Henry back a step, and into that momentary space the doctor firmly shut the door in his sovereign’s face. Thomas waited a tense second with bated breath, Montjoy holding it with him, and they both relaxed in a shared soft exhalation as the king stalked off with footsteps deliberately rendered indignant.

*

Thomas lowered the herald gently into a chair, and did not speak another word, though his posture burned with unresolved questions, until he had diligently stripped off dripping shirt and ruined bandages. Clean rags in hand, he bent over the shoulder first, shaking his head to himself. The wound gaped open, wide where the French physician had cut at it to remove the bolt, and deep where the Duke had stabbed into it for the truth.  

“You and Henry, out in the rain, in these sadly inadequate clothes?” he asked as he dabbed away the blood, curious but not pressing, and speaking with the clear, infallible voice that people who had to fix complex things gravitated towards. He wore a simple robe, worn and sensible, and a small crucifix of fine silver beneath it. It hung at the level of his heart, and at its center, a vivid precious gem, sparkling as it spun slowly beneath his bent head, drawing Montjoy’s weary eye. The man’s lined and bearded face swam vaguely in and out of focus, and to his greatest shame, the herald could not place him. _A royal physician, with Henry’s trust in his discretion and an uncommon informality with his king._

“I— was leaving without his permission. He came to stop me.”

Thomas uncorked a glass bottle and sniffed its contents, the smell of which wrinkled his nose. His eyes flicked to his patient’s face, gauging pain, emotion and thought within the scrupulous quickness of a glance. “I hope you know what you are doing,” he said gravely, sending the herald into a fit of merry delirious laughter. As the weak raving humor broke and died in heaving coughs, the physician upended the bottle smoothly over the wound. The searing sting of the alcohol made Montjoy hiss and bite his lip.

“I am lost here,” the herald said through a roughly clenched jaw.  
“Then you are in grave danger.”  
“What should I do?”  
“Break his heart.”

Montjoy stared blankly but there was not an ounce of jest on Thomas’ face, only deadly seriousness. Bleakly, he realized he could not hide the reality of the situation from this canny, cautious man, who with all likelihood knew how he had been put to sleep by the king. No doubt here was the author of those small, neat knots with their meticulously trimmed ends. The source of the sure strength that wrapped tight bandages.

“Else he shall persist. Endlessly. Tirelessly.”  
“I see.”    
“I did not say you have to be cruel, only firm.”  
“Thank you, doctor.”  
“Please, Thomas.”    
“Thank you for everything, Thomas of Oxford,” said the herald, recognizing him at last.

The royal physician nodded once in acknowledgment as he picked up the herald’s hand and probed the ragged edges of the cut, eliciting a wince for his efforts.    

“Not at all. Think nothing of it.” He leaned away to grab a candle holder from the top of his dresser. The single sinuous flame played shadows over his face, concern leering into something other, as he brought it close to the palm.    
“Do not be afraid,” Thomas said. “Tell the king to back off. You should know well, Henry is honorable, if anything.”

His frank advice turned Montjoy’s gaze aside, as if to avoid the speaker as well as the conversation. His fingers stuttered once, almost closing, warded off by the candle fire, and the knowing look in the other man’s eyes.

_Imagine the same even voice advising an amputation, or a quick knife to the throat of a suffering man. He is not so benign as he appears, this educated man with steady dexterous hands, no he is fearsome in his own way. He is all bloodstained in his own way._

“You know him well?” he asked, deflecting.  
“Since his childhood,” Thomas said with a smile, “and I have seen him like this before, flushed with concern, unfailingly attentive. Though, never for a Frenchman, to be certain.” The doctor looks at him askance. “You must be someone special then.”  
“I assure you, I am no such thing.”  
“Henry usually has reasons for what he does.”  
“Your king feels misplaced guilt and thinks himself to blame for these injuries."  
“Perhaps so,” said the physician, patently disbelieving.

With a sigh, Montjoy covered his eyes. The darkness was fleeting salvation, transient escape, but the shadow of the flame was there, thinly burning, white against his eyelids. He had been staring into it.

“I am not a spy, Thomas.”  
“Oh, I know very well, King of Arms. You have no need to defend yourself to me.” He chuckled dismissively. “An absurd notion is given attention because the truth is far more absurd. What need is there for spying when Henry declares his every move with impunity?”

Thomas moved a cup of water to the herald’s hand as he began coughing again.

“Though now I have you here awake,” he said, “I was rather hoping you would satisfy my professional curiosity. These were made by crossbow bolts, were they not? Or more precisely a surgeon hacking them out.”  
“Yes.”  
“Who would be so wicked as to shoot a herald?”  
“I do not know.”  
“But not at Agincourt?”  
“No, not then. After.”  
“They were not English.”

Montjoy’s reply was a wordless stare, suffused with meaning. _Ask for no truths, and I shall tell you no lies._ Thomas threaded a needle in a contemplative silence as the herald watched him intently from beneath his drenched and matted fringe, winter rain trickling steadily down his face. French and English, they gave each other honesty, as befitting honest men, but it was guarded, the accord frail and the pain grating. The herald followed the tip of the needle, hypnotized, right up to the point where it entered his skin.

 “These were made by rope,” Thomas said, working efficiently, ignoring Montjoy’s discomfort with the ease of long practice.  
“Yes.”  
“And these—”  
“Please, Thomas.”

 _This is no mere professional curiosity._ The physician tied off the silk line and snapped it in his teeth. In the crystal silence the sharp sound made Montjoy flinch. His pleading expression was considered by sympathetic grey eyes.

“The Dauphin?” asked Thomas finally, stirring a viscous paste vigorously with a small wooden spoon. The herald released the breath he had been holding in a low, strained hiss.  
“Dear God, No,” he said. “Why would my prince have recourse to this barbarism?”  
“You were the bearer of bad news, after all.”  
“Does the Dauphin have so poor a reputation amongst you English? He is no less honorable than your king.”  
“All we English have had from him is ridicule and scorn. He earns his reputation— the way he has spoken he deserves it.”  
“He is a prince of the House of Valois,” said Montjoy severely, bracing himself as the doctor raised his spoon.  
“Honey,” Thomas mouthed at the herald, eyeing his agitation. “But don’t eat any.” He slopped on the sticky salve, and to Montjoy’s frank relief, it was as benign as he had promised.

“All I know is,” he continued, “he sends out his herald bent over and bleeding, using injury to his own purpose regardless of danger and pain. But let me not criticize your master any more. For my second guess, the Duke of Burgundy is the culprit.”  
“That is unfailingly astute,” Montjoy sighed. “You are no mere doctor, Thomas. Are you the king’s spymaster as well?”

He received a hearty laugh from the man as he exchanged the empty bowl for fresh bandages.

“Do you find my questions suspect? If so, I apologize. It is only my poor raging curiosity, I assure you. Your prince needs no spies because Henry makes his actions clear. Henry needs no spies because he reads men and situations like books, their actions plain as words on a page. And that is precisely why I wonder about you.”  
“Wonder?” Montjoy did not comment on his deflection, just as the physician had not commented on his. Around the delicate boundaries they felt; they moved by each other carefully, ships sailing through a fog.  
“Henry acts like—” Thomas paused, tugging on the loose ends of the bandage as if unrooting a recalcitrant idea from his mind. “Like he has seen something.” The herald caught up the loose fabric in his fingers, thwarting the doctor’s attempts to tuck them away.

“Question my wounds, question my wisdom, but please do not question my loyalty,” he said severely, scratching at the smooth cloth. With a quick jerk, Thomas liberated it from his idle grip and tied them off around his wrist.  
“I did not mean to,” he said, brushing away the herald’s fingertips as they investigated the knot, “nor do I think it is in question.”  
“Oh? Because you Englishmen already regard us French as your countrymen?” Montjoy asked wryly.  
“Because we Englishmen know the heart cannot lie in opposition to duty.”  
“That is a funny way to see duty then.”  
“You were at Agincourt. You saw the consequence of such thinking.”

_Therein duty lies, the love of the English for their king?_

“What I saw at Agincourt was slaughter and devastation.” His voice was frigid, warning, and Thomas responded with a conciliatory smile as he started into another set.  
“I only mean to say, conduct yourself in opposition to the heart, and no matter how hard you try, it will always undermine you.”  
“You exhort me not to undermine your king?”  
“It is not Henry I am thinking of. He can take care of himself. I’m afraid you are rather more vulnerable than him. And you do not need me to tell you all the dangers associated with a king’s close attention.”

“It is a cycle of sorts,” said the herald, his concentration ebbing with what felt like tidal inevitability, “his concern only invites violence which only invites more concern and so on, repeating— and repeating…”

Try as he might, he could not stop his eyes from closing as lethargy weighed increasingly on his limbs, and comforting darkness tried to pull his mind down into elusive rest. _My God… not this again._

“Please tell me, Thomas, you have not drugged me. I must be on the ship to England in the morning.”  
“Upon my word, I will make sure you are.”  
“God damn all your English medicine!”  
“There is no need to swear,” Thomas said calmly, putting a shirt over Montjoy’s head. “It is only the manifestation of your own need for sleep. The more powerful the effect, the greater the need.”  
“God damn all you Englishmen as well!” the herald cried, distress muffled as he struggled stiffly with the loose garment.  
“And we poor Englishmen only concerned for your health.”

With one last valiant improbable effort, the herald lurched forward from the chair, grasping for the doctor and catching his sleeve with limp fingers. Thomas caught him before he could fall, straining with his ear at the herald’s mouth to make out the whispers launched with so much desperation into the descending darkness.

“I know I ask much, but, please— please don’t—”  
“Just try to rest easy. I will put Henry to bed.”  
“I—”  
“Rest. The more you struggle against it, the harder it will be to resist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	8. A Piece for Everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a storm at sea, chewing men up.

“At dawn, the armies formed up, ranks upon ranks of armored men. The English grim-faced, lean and hollow-eyed. The French with their heads held high as their horses pranced beneath fluttering caparison and heavy cloth of gold.” His soft even voice captivated his audience, every word falling as gently as new snow, and hung upon by a dozen wide eyes. Some had a spoon halfway to their mouths, others had abandoned the act of breakfasting completely and for the herald’s part, he was sick to his stomach of telling the tale.

Once to a King and his court, their faces ashen. Once to a Duke, who had cried for his fallen brothers, and sworn bloody revenge. Once to a Captain, an old friend, fear in his eyes for his beloved city, his friends, his family. Once to a Lieutenant, a chronicler with the hungry greed of distant curiosity. And many, many times, to men and women like the ones seated about him now. To the farmers in the fields and the workers in the streets who accosted him with the names of loved ones hot on their lips, though they knew in their hearts no herald would mark common corpses. To the men and women who listened with the hardened rationality of those used to misfortune, every grief another indelible line on their weathered faces. With each story, another line etched into his mind.

Each memory rose up thick as bile and choking as the words left his mouth, “the archers”, “the constable”, “the king”, but his composure held so sure that none of the English servants gathered around the table had any sense of his allegiance, or any hint of his dark and constant sorrow. The account of the legendary battle that the herald told to Englishmen was a joyous tale of triumph, little deserving of his bitterness to mar its glory, and under its outspread wings they could experience the sheer and incomparable feeling of being English at Agincourt’s end. Meanwhile the French peasantry spat at his feet and assaulted him and chased him from their hearth with a vehemence he could not bring himself to resent. 

Some, faces transfixed, broke in to question him on one detail or another, but they were violently shushed down by their neighbors eager for the story to go on. At the slaughter they gasped as one, at victory triumphant they cheered as exuberantly as if they were there, and at the king’s trembling prayer they wept great sighs of pious love. When he fell to silence, and to his own share of breakfast, the fresh thinness of the air before the dawn strung out the quiet like a forest of white laundry lines, filling the room with a fresh airy clarity. Each man was lost in his own thoughts, even the dullest of the servants marveling at the grand vista of clashing knights that had been vividly painted before his eyes, as fine as any Flemish masterwork wrought from the herald’s evocative words.

It was the matron who spoke first, from the head of the table. “Let us all give thanks to God,” she said, reverentially, “for his great good Justice, and our blessed king Henry, and to the victory.” A second wave of peace reigned as they all bowed their heads and mouthed the silent prayer. Montjoy ventured a bite of bread when no one was looking. It was the first he had eaten in a few days, and every mouthful was a heartfelt benediction in its own right. There in the center of the fire-warmed kitchen and the midst of the servants sitting down to their first meal, he was, at long last, restful.

Moments later, the table erupted with noise as the kitchen boys, the serving maids, the candle-lighters, the grooms, the armor-polishers, and others he did not recognize spoke as one. Speculation raged fearsomely. The older men discussed the king’s next campaign, the stablehands, his new horseflesh and above the low voices of the men the servant girls chattered endlessly about the handsomest young knights to come out of the battle covered in glory, loudly lamenting the death of the Duke of York as sorrowfully as if they were his sisters, or his wives-to-be. Nodding this way and that, he ate contentedly until a timid hand grasped at his sleeve and interrupted him mid-swallow with its urgent tugs. Montjoy recognized the servant girl who had appeared at his side as the same girl who had waited on the king, and when introducing herself that morning, had nervously averted her gaze.

“Sir Herald,” she began, but hesitated, and he encouraged her with a gentle nod. Her words came out all in a rush, each sound riding fiercely on the tail of the previous, leaving the speaker breathless at the end of the question. “Sir— are you an enchanter?” Montjoy froze, confused, then under the sudden keen attention of all those who had been near enough to hear her question, he settled his face into an expression of calm amusement. Like contagion, the silence rippled out along the long table as each man nudged his neighbor until all eyes were once again on him and all sound had stilled to hear his reply. He saw that she had been the only one bold enough to ask a question that had been weighing on everyone’s mind, a fearless determination to seek some private resolution shining through her pale, worried face. “Only—the king never brings _anyone_ to that room, not even his uncles. It is his very private room.” All around the king’s servants were nodding, headlong judgment in their eyes.  

“Oh dear,” he said quietly, “I believe I have made a bad impression on the good Duke?” More nodding confirmed his suspicions, and one boy chimed in gleefully, “And more than one at that, sir! They say you have magicked the king!” _How many bloodthirsty Dukes of England have I outraged exactly?_ He wanted to ask, but thought better of it. “If I knew magic,” he mused, “I would not come as a poor herald, but as a prince.” They considered his logic, curious bright-eyed mynahs picking over a bead, but it was made of glass, and unsatisfying. Far more fascinating for their stoveside chatter was the sparkling crystal possibility that it could be true. They would not challenge him, a royal herald, but they would spy and whisper and imagine. Unchecked, rumor would leap from idle mouth to curious mind, engorging and changing, until it reached the wrong ears, until it immolated itself in the way of such things, consuming in the fantastic blaze its own subject.

Paling slightly, he hurried to waylay their thoughts before any could reach and utter a damning conclusion that would be cemented in their minds. “Your good king,” he said, “in his limitless generosity, wanted to cure me of all my ills, over and above my own objections, as you can imagine.” They could and they chuckled knowingly at his lamentation. “Blithely like some injured hound he put me to sleep, and now alas, now I will have to work that much harder to make up for all the days I’ve lost.” With a casual shrug and a heartfelt grin, he said, “I’m sure there’s a reason your king keeps his sleeping powder in his private rooms, but it is a secret he did not share with me.” _My deepest apologies, your Majesty, for offering you to your hungry gossiping lions like so much raw meat. But, for you, they will be kinder. They will be sympathetic._

Montjoy breathed an internal sigh of relief as they warmed to the diverting subject of the king’s intentions, but in the ebb and flow of vicious debate, the servant girl’s dark eyes were still fixed accusingly on him. “By the by, there is no such thing as enchanters,” he said offhandedly, setting off a firestorm of opinion as they all spoke up at once, talking over each other in their haste to show off what they knew.

“Exactly, it is impossible to conjure love.”  
“Nah, my mum says, her neighbor did enchant herself a husband, there.”  
“Your old mum…”  
“Anyway, the doctor did say…”  
“Will the Duke have our heads now, for breakfasting the enchanter?”    
“What enchanter?”  
“Silly toad…”

He leant in closer so his words, masked by the general commotion, were directed at Lucy. “It is a painful thing to love a king as you do,” he said softly. With a little gasp, she rose from the bench, cheeks flaming, and pelted out of the kitchen, the matron frowning as she went. “Aye, you are right there,” commented the groom seated next to him, “Mad for the king ever since she clapped eyes on him. Poor girl.” A cheerful jeer came from further down the table, “And what English girl isn’t? Harry had best marry quick before he breaks the hearts of half the country.” Instantly, the groom retaliated, “The king is not going to off and wed for the hearts of serving maids! It is an extremely…” He was cut off as loud sighs of boredom issued from several seats. Amidst the vigorous discussion erupting over the king’s countenance and prospects, Montjoy murmured his excuses and followed the matron’s meaningful gaze out the relevant door.

He found the girl seated in a low alcove, her fingers wound tightly in her hair. “I meant no disrespect, dear lady,” he said, beseeching with one hand. There was anger in her face as she stubbornly turned away from him, so with barely a grimace for the pain he sank to one knee, drawing level with her. “Do you know, the king cherishes you. You can see it in his face.” This brought her round, with large, hopeful eyes. “Do you think Henry is an honest man?” She nodded violently. “Then, unlike most men, you can believe what you see. You shall see the truth.” Biting her lip, she said, “I see his face when he looks at you, Sir, when you are asleep. Do you know he stares? His expression is full of longing. I have seen it.” Suddenly it is his turn to turn away, embarrassed. “You may think I am silly, that I love him, a servant girl. But it is more silly that he looks at you that way, a Frenchman.” _How to turn away your resolute jealousy with mere words?_ He stared, almost lost for words.

“Yes, it is most silly, isn’t it.”          
“Is it true?”

“The king thinks himself the cause of my wounds, and he is overly concerned. His worry for a Frenchman is silly, but not unthinkable.” Her lips travel through a small pout of disbelief towards uncertainty. “What he wants is justice, what he thinks of is untarnished virtue, before everything else. Do you believe that?” _A great lie based on little, acceptable truths._ It is a wonder to the herald that bends his truths, but his sincerity does not waver in the blowing wind. _John, my tireless teacher, what do you think of me now? I have learnt to lie to kings and servant girls alike._ Again she nodded, with a renewed light in her eyes. “Heralds cross borders at will, but like any coat of arms, we are only extensions of our masters—” He hesitated, and the girl, bright and fast and brought up in the king’s household, immediately followed with a gasp of understanding.

“Oh! I see…! I had thought it was silly… oh! Do not think me so terribly silly, I beg you. I do not know what I was thinking.” Montjoy smiled and gingerly, like an old man, began to haul himself back to his feet. She lent her arm to his aid when she saw how he grimaced and tried to hide it with each small movement. “Best for you to love him as a _king_ though,” he counseled. He did not have the heart to tell her to stop loving him. Instead, she stuck out her tongue cheekily, and her crystal laughter rang out. “I shall love him any way I please, master herald. After all, he is not your king, you will not understand it.” Before the echoes had faded she was off again down the corridor and back to her breakfast, leaving the herald wistful of her boundless energy, his last words falling only on the deafness of the motes of dust spiraling in the empty air. “As a king only—”

*

He had woken in the doctor’s bed to find the man gone, leaving behind a neatly folded stack of his clothes and a quick note describing the way to the stables where Henry had sequestered his mount. It was as clear an indication of the wise man’s preferred course of action as he would get, but as Montjoy limped laboriously down the street he was adamant. _Ride? Run? Head bowed, into the rising sun? If whistling arrows and roaring lions weren’t enough, this will not break me._ The notion of abandoning his duty burned like bitter poison in his gut, but the behavior of the king was working at a deeper level, churning up his inner self to weak and warring ribbons of self-contempt.

In the mid-morning glare, the narrow dockside streets were packed with thronging bodies, but the sight of his troubled face and his lilied tabard cleared him an unmolested path down to the water. It seemed like all of Calais knew the king’s departure date, and they milled about and sang hymns and leaned out of windows, festive and fervent. At pier, the buzz of industrious preparation engulfed the royal vessel and her attendant fleet, men and goods moving in and out and all around the deck as fast as humanly possible. The merchant captain stood at the forecastle rail, an island of stillness, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, and his eyes on the street lined with scowling guards. The loitering crowds seemed to distress him, or the noblemen littering his deck, and he would often mutter something under his breath to the sailor standing behind him. 

Immediately, Montjoy saw his horse through the chaos at the ship’s side. She was furiously tossing her head, her mane a sweeping tide of dark anger, and with humiliating ease she dragged the reins out of the hands of the handler as he tried once more to lead her into the dank mouth of the hold. Irritation steamed off her body in great gouts and her rage sparkled like the morning off the diamond sea, tossing this way and that and nearly halting the herald, struck by its beauty. She had not seen her owner in days, and meant to make those around her pay for it. Montjoy was not surprised when the stablehand nearly fainted for relief after he had tapped him on the shoulder and explained his ownership. He was passed the reins double-quick and the man disappeared across the street even quicker, without a backward glance. The anxious man had ten more horses to load before the tide turned, and the king’s dextriers were stronger and more vicious than the herald’s mount.

She bulled up to him in such a hurry it hurt, but he laughed out loud with unconditional joy. “I could explain, my darling,” he said, inspecting her tack carefully, “but you will not believe me.” Ascertaining he was in one piece took longer. She sniffed at the doctor’s salve suspiciously as he put his arms around her neck and breathed in her familiar scent, as comforting as returning home to a bed molded by long use to the pure shape of the body. In his embrace she settled down, her countenance instantly honey-sweet, belying the hellion before, and behind his back the stablehand, now leading another horse past, shot the herald an awestruck glance. But he did not notice, he was whispering in her ear his troubles with uneasy preoccupation.

“What should I do, my dear? Should we go into that dark hole there? You are an old sea dog, you know what therein lies and across the sea—Or shall we turn our heads to the road?” He does not add, _and save me the headache of the English king?_ Guided by his long fingers, her gaze goes one way, then the other, then settles back on him quizzically. “Do not stay silent, I beg you.” A familiar request wanly made and it is one that she, as ever, ignores. “I know,” he said, as she idly nibbled his hand, “I know.” The stablehand crossing by them again waved him into the ship with an impatient gesture, but the herald only nodded to him, eyes drawn to the distant horizon. _I don’t know._

He stood by her side forever, infuriating the anxious handler, until the rising surf of noise and fanfare and horseshoes ringing out on cobblestone processing down the street warned him of the king’s approach long before the white nose of Henry’s delicate palfrey appeared beyond the line of houses, snorting at the salty sea breeze. The captain materialized at the foot of the gangway, wringing his hands nervously. Above, the wheeling sea birds were nonchalant and rude as ever, they did not stop their shrieks and calls, not even for a king. Somewhere in between these two extremes, the herald wavered.

His eyes tracked the slim fair-haired figure closely as Henry dismounted and handed off the reins of his horse. The members of his procession followed suit, his uncles, his brothers, his lords and their retainers. All were gaily dressed and cheerful, as if embarking upon a tournament, where the rankings of the lists made all men friends. By his somber expression, standing out amongst the smiles, Montjoy picked out the Duke of Orleans, unhappily roped into the king’s retinue. Indeed, he stood right by England’s king, who was showing him the greatest respect and courtesy.

Across the length of the wooden dock and its entire pedestrian bustle, Henry met Montjoy’s gaze directly, and smiled. A sideways smile, searing with its secret meaning. Involuntarily, the herald felt himself retreat a step, his back up against his mount and his hand against his chest like a ward against its unwanted intrusion. At the distance, Montjoy could not make out the king’s expression clearly, but he thought Henry’s eyes were bright with amusement, glittering with far too much mischief. Though he had one arm around the shoulders of the French Duke, Montjoy knew that secret smile on the king’s face was for him, and that knowing wink as the king made a joke he could not hear, was also for him.

_See here is your duty, I have it in hand. Can you forsake it now that you have seen it? Too cruel, England’s king. Even for you._

Perceptive behind his affected indifference, Charles d’Orleans followed Henry’s gaze right down to where Montjoy stood with his horse, and nodded solemnly in recognition to his herald. _Too cruel._ Pinned in place by his regard, Montjoy made a sketch of a bow in answer, grimly aware of the dark glances thrown his way from the queue of English lords trailing their king. As if the king’s own attention weren’t enough, now add to that confusion those evil wishes and before he had step foot on the rocking boat he was already treading water in a sea of unease, every bruise twinging, every wound aching, every muscle tense and rigid. Henry laughed merrily, at his unheard joke, or perhaps, at his perfectly timed deception, and followed the ship’s captain up upon deck. “Come on, my love,” he muttered, averting his eyes, “we will get through this.” Head down, she followed him up the gangway and into the darkness of the hold, to the open relief of the English stablehand.

*

The hold of the merchant ship was dim with lantern light and damp-smelling. Its weathered stalls had low mildewed walls clearly designed for smaller livestock, and each and every one of the fine riding horses towered uncomfortably over their accommodation. Wide-eyed in the gloom, they stamped and snorted their disapproval, and the herald’s mount was no exception. Montjoy took his time to settle her spirits, whispering soothing platitudes as he rubbed her down with customary care. She would not let him leave until reassured that he was still madly in love with her, nor would he rest until he had checked the straw underfoot, the provided water, and the comfort of the temporary stall, infusing every inch of its strange hardship with his comforting presence.

They cast off with little warning, as the ship shuddered violently from prow to stern and a great jolt was felt beneath their feet, setting the horses to panic. Swearing under his breath, the lone Englishman who had stayed in the hold scrambled to restore peace, but he was sorely outnumbered by his skittish biting charges. As Montjoy emerged from his stall to help, he received a harried look of pure gratitude.

In quiet, metrical French, he took their heads one by one in a firm grip and spoke to them, as if to restore the grassy ground by vocal association, as if to conjure to them long-forgotten dreams of soft, green plains. Here was Henry’s elegant white mare with her waterfall of silver hair, and here was his warhorse, brutal and imposing. Here was Exeter’s dappled gelding, stocky and tall like its master, and here was Gloucester’s proud dark stallion, an improper mount for a procession, or a statement by an excellent horseman. They sneered and rolled their eyes for his efforts, but skin-rippling, manes tossing, they eventually settled to the sound of his voice. _If only your masters were so easy to please._ The thought made him grin. By the end of the row, he had to assuage his own mount all over again, affectionately, and it was many swells beyond the calm of port before he ventured beyond the small wooden door set in the far wall.

Out in the corridor, he found three Englishmen waiting for him, their faces set with grim purpose. “Argent, quarterly and cross engrailed gules,” he said, inspecting the arms on the breast of the closest with interest. “Seigneur d’Surrey,” he concluded. Flattered, the impassive expression on the knight so-named flickered imperceptibly. “Seigneur Bilham and Seigneur d’Evanswood,” Montjoy continued, peering over his broad shoulders at the arms of the younger knights flanking him. If the French accent rose sharply in his voice like an accusation, he was guilty of resenting these Englishmen. He named them, and was gratified to see their faces pale just the slightest, their attitudes shifting like treacherous ice.

_Did you think to commit your dirty acts without the discredit ever attaching to your titles? Am I not still a royal herald, deserving of your respect?_

“Enough, herald. We are not here to chat with you.” Their leader spoke with menace, and authority. He met the herald’s gaze with immovable ice. “You do not belong here,” threatened the second. There was a tremor running through his youthful voice. His interjection was met with an impatient frown from his senior.

_One seasoned soldier and two young knights, sent by their masters. One to hunt and two to stand guard. Do you even know why you are here?_

“Yet here I am,” he said as he eyed each one sadly. “What does that tell you?”  
“You are not what you seem,” said the third with a narrow frown.  
The herald put one hand on his tabard with feigned surprise, and said, “I seem to be Valois King of Arms. Do you deny me safe passage, good Seigneurs?”

The young knights opened their mouths, faces darkening in anger, but Surrey silenced them with a curt gesture. “On the contrary, King of Arms,” he said, “we are here to guarantee your safety.” _Very good. Here is an Englishman who does not surrender his honor at the first question._ Reaching out with one implacable hand, he shoved the herald forcefully against the door. “And we recommend you stay down here with the animals, where it’s safe.” _But that does not mean he is an honorable man._ “If our hospitality seems crude, we apologize. After all, we are but simple men of the sword.” He gave the herald a meaningful if unsubtle look, and over the thrusting pain in his shoulder Montjoy returned him a tired nod.

“Since you are a simple man,” he said, “give me your reasons. And I will give you my word, in exchange.” For a long heartbeat, the Englishman stared at him, taken aback. Then he flashed him a wide, wolfish grin, and said, “I believe the exact words of my Lord were _I swear to God I will pitch him over the side if I catch sight of him_. Will that suffice?” Montjoy nodded again, unsurprised. “Thank you,” he said, plainly, and turned to open the door to the hold. The Englishman heaved a sigh of relief, and stalked swiftly back down the hallway, leaving behind his twin shadows lingering, unsatisfied. “Do you find that my word is not enough, gentlemen?” Montjoy asked blandly. Bereft of their erstwhile leader, they glanced at each once, and eyes flickering over the herald’s cold amusement, retreated with muttered half-hearted threats.

He did not look back as he re-entered the hold, nor did the handler ask him any questions as he brushed past him on the way out. He had heard the unfriendly exchange and prudently wanted no part of the politics, though he did spare the Frenchman a deeply sympathetic glance. With a sigh, Montjoy settled down outside his horse’s stall, commenting blandly to her as he did, “One from Exeter, one from Gloucester, one from Bedford. Tell me, my darling, how shall we survive such formidable opposition?” Roused to his voice, she put her head over the ropes and regarded him fondly. “But, they did not pitch me over the side the first chance they got. It is a good sign, isn’t it?”

*

He did not know how he could have dozed off in such an unlikely position, braced against the rounded pillar, his legs splayed out uncomfortably on the wooden floor, but he had managed it, and now he woke out of his dazed sleep to a frantic, nightmarish hell. The wooden floor pitched every which way beneath his feet as the entire vessel rose and plunged and heaved, the animals screaming in their panic, fighting their tethers, mouths in a lather and the handler nowhere in sight. Though he had no window to the world, he pictured in his mind the violent ploughing of the sea up and down, the constant drumbeat of rain filling his ears with a wooden roar and once, terrifyingly close, a nerve rattling boom of thunder that shook the beams. In the gloom, comprehension dawned momentarily and was no more reassuring than the utter confusion it replaced. They had sailed into the false night of a thunderstorm and now it was howling its displeasure through every plank and nail and bone in his body.

“Hush, my love,” he whispered to his straining, sweating mount, “my sea horse, my brave nereid—surely, you are not afraid of a little rain.” He ignored the weakness, the pains, the groaning physical protests his body made as he spoke softly to her ear, his voice poured caramel, his words spun sugar, and his hands gentle as he lovingly tempted her to calm down and listen. Though she was less wild-eyed than the others, some kicking out fiercely at their surroundings, the king’s great charger having already broken more than one plank, she did not settle easily in the ship’s wild bucking and her ears were pinned back to her skull with fear. “Remember the meadows, my darling, their sweet fragrance and their golden splendor, bathed in the light of the summer sun, remember how the flowers grow there.”

And once she was calmed, he made rounds of the low-ceilinged hold filled with screaming, until he was panting with the effort and biting down against each ragged breath, because each animal had to be gentled and soothed and made to believe they were safe under his aegis, each subsequent horse more and more difficult as they smelt the herald’s mounting pain and desperation. The ship’s violent heaving grew worse with every moment. The purebred palfreys of the procession, delicate and soft-tempered, defied all of their fine-boned beauty with their seething terror, their wide-eyed foam-flecked madness.  The horses of war, though they were used to thundering crashes, to great tremors of the earth, were infected by the suffocating fear in the hold with violent seizures and their animal instincts commanded them to run and run swiftly so the confined space sent every one into frenzied paroxysms of rage.

He pulled down on their tethers with all his weight, laying his entire body into the action, plying his voice with all the smooth charm he could muster, wrestling mountain after mountain down, and by the end of the line of horses he was hoarse and exhausted and drenched like a sail in the rain, and already the first animals were beginning to act up again. The tension lingered, gathered and built because he could not eradicate their fear, only dampen it and like a man hiding beneath a blanket in a firestorm he had to continually check it was damp everywhere, else risk losing everything he had previously gained to the conflagration. Too soon for his own liking he was clumsy from exhaustion and banging his forehead on low beams as he covered and re-covered the hold, each animal growing steadily wilder as his strength flagged. 

It was an eternity later that the handler clattered in, groggy from his rude awakening, with Thomas of Oxford close behind. Montjoy acknowledged the doctor with wary regard, seeing instantly from his face that he wanted something. “What is happening?” he shouted over the noise, bracing against a pillar as the ship rolled. Wordlessly, the royal physician took the herald’s arm and led him back through the door he had come. Out in the hallway, Montjoy could see men rushing by around the corners, nervous, desperate shadows lit by swinging lanterns, and a murky darkness brought on by the extinguishing of candles rendered dangerous in the endless tossing. He felt a twinge of unease as he passed through the portal, but in the twilight beyond the hold, the knights were nowhere to be seen.

“Fierce storm, Montjoy,” Thomas shouted back, the strong baritone belying his age. “Thought you’ld be on another ship! Or long gone!” The herald shook his head. “Glad you’re here! I need your help!” Montjoy had never heard his voice so terse with stress and controlled panic. Together, they moved rapidly through the boarded confines, the herald allowing himself to be half-carried, half-dragged by the determined man down unfamiliar corridors, under low dripping roofs while thunder crashed overhead and pale-faced strangers fell away before Thomas’ vigorous stride and hatchet-like attitude. They climbed stairs two at a time, charged down passageways as if chased by some devil, all the while rising steadily through the sunken depths of the reeling merchant ship like dogged air pockets through a convoluted flask of glass until they were right at the level of the main deck and the pounding of rain and waves and dashing feet was almost deafening.  

The feeling of dread dug in deeper beneath the herald’s skin, but he knew better than to voice it. “But I know no medicine, Thomas,” he said instead, for a lack of something better to say. Suddenly, the man spun around to face him, and those stern, piercing eyes pored long over his own, searching for understanding. “It is not a question of medication, herald. You’ve successfully calmed the king’s horses. Now you need to calm the king himself. Save him from his own folly!” Tiredly, Montjoy pulled back at the mention of Henry and out of the doctor’s hold on his arm.

“I cannot save your English king from anything. You know I cannot.”

Although Thomas folded his hands and did not grasp at the herald again, the doctor gave him an impatient look. “Now is not the time for debate,” he said severely, “Henry is in serious danger. Will you let him down?” Montjoy stared at him, worry mounting, but shook his head again, more violently. “How can the king be in danger aboard his own ship?  The storm? You want me to beseech God? You are asking the wrong man.”

As the doctor leaned in close and lowered his voice, the herald saw by the flickering light of the lantern he held close emotions chase each other across the man’s face, fleeting but real. Exasperation by impatience by understanding by fear and each one left its trace behind as he said with painstakingly severity, “Even now, Henry seeks the storm, reckless of the danger. He wants to question it, and no man can tell him otherwise— such foolish foolhardy bravery.” He shook his head at the thought and put one determined hand on the herald’s arm. “Did you not harangue him in his own tent, hard by the battle’s end?” he said, “I have never heard of such boldness, Montjoy, but it is sorely needed now.”

_You did not hear that story from me. Then, from whom? Henry?_

The herald snorted derisively. “You have never heard of such stupidity, and I shall not repeat it,” he said, but the doctor shot back, “I told you to get away, yet here you are. I do not believe you will abandon him now.” Anger at the splinter of truth in that declaration shoved its way to the herald’s face and though his words remained civil, his gaze had a dark light and his whisper was sharp with denial as he said, half to himself, “Whatever it is you want, Thomas, you cannot ask it of me. I am a herald of France, an enemy perhaps, a friend but not an ally. No matter what you’ve heard, or what you think you saw I cannot help you.” He saw the doctor’s fury rise, and the man took hold of his arm with a strength and grip that brooked no argument or escape. “Deny it if you wish, herald, but you have a hold on the king, and like it or not you will stop him before this idiocy gets him killed.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Montjoy saw the planked passageway engorge with frantic bodies desperately clamoring for the attention of a grim and silent king who strode through their midst no more delayed than by a softly swirling fog, his attendants parting before him and attending on his shadow as devoted as hunting hounds, raising their voices in shrill protest. In the face of that English maelstrom, Montjoy instantly thought better of further argument and turned to leave, only to find the physician’s hold was as immovable as fate, strangling his opportunity to flee in its sure and pitiless grip. With the exhaustion seeping down his back slamming painfully into the adrenaline surging upwards from his gut, he heard Henry call their names, and despaired when the king’s eyes lit on him with expressive joy.

“Where have you been?”

His gaze flickered briefly to the crowd of English knights, who answered him with undisguised animosity from behind their master’s back. “In the hold, your majesty,” he answered simply, holding the gaze of one in particular whom he recognized. The Englishman shrugged and looked away as Henry, slightly perplexed, asked the herald with genuine concern, “Why?” He squinted in the dim light, observing in moments, the herald’s hands, red from fighting coarse rope and stubborn stallions, his clothes drenched in sweat, the slightly sagging attitude of his body, and said, “The horses?”

Montjoy nodded, and in the opportunity presented by his silence Tomas said hastily, “Since he boarded from the hold, he was not allocated for, your majesty. I must find him a place to rest.” His false sincerity grated like wringing torture, making the herald cringe and grit his teeth as if struck, but Henry’s calm gaze did not waver. “It is dangerous to be wandering the ship in a storm, Thomas. Go back to your room,” he commanded, and added for the benefit of the entire corridor, “Go back to your rooms, all of you.” Resentment seemed to hang in the air like poisonous miasma as the troop of men dispersed, the susurrations of their muttered complaints all but lost in the storm’s noise and thoroughly ignored by the herald with practiced indifference, including the doctor’s last, meaningful stare. He followed obediently when Henry took hold of his arm with a quiet “Come,” and they set off down the passageway at speed.

Henry put his shoulder through the doors and thrust them both into the pummeling of the raging storm; before the herald had taken a breath the driving rain had plastered its wintry chill straight to his soul, and in the shadow of his startled gasp the wind stole in to thieve the warmth from his beating heart.

“Stay close to me!”

Even Henry was forced to shout above the relentless pounding noise, like thousands on the march in rattling mail, his voice whipped away in an instant, his grip insistent. The herald’s tall frame bent in graceful tension like a drawn bow against the fury of the storm and every aching yaw of the ship set his feet scrambling for purchase against the salt slicked planks. In the fleeting illumination of a lightning bolt his heart quailed to see towering waves the color of bruises tossing on every side, taller than the rails, crashing down enraged across this paltry wooden toy that challenged the sea, white foam spraying in the air, and sometimes in the distance, other ships of the fleet that had sailed that morning, struggling along in such fragility, swarming with ant-sized men, that the mind froze rather than think of the similarity of the ship to those floating hollow shells caught in the nightmarish distance. It was moments before Montjoy realized he had frozen as well, and the king was tugging determinedly at his arm, gesturing for the bow.

“We must get to the front,” he shouted, and put his head down and took one step at a time with furious concentration, one hand on the herald, the other on the rail. Sailors rushing around frantically gave them space as they came close enough to recognize the king, and once, when he turned back, he thought he saw through the chaos a man frantically pointing at them and shouting a warning to the captain at the wheel, whose grim grey eyes were focused only on the masts and the sails and the heaving waves, and whose mouth seemed to move without sound. All was the roaring of the wind and the churning sea until he fetched up short against the king’s back and realized they had made it to the narrow end, where Henry turned to face him, his strong Plantagenet features unholy in the sharp storm light, all sharp corners and pitiless lines, ending abruptly where his hair had been plastered to his head.

“Seems we cannot get out of the rain!” The king shouted into the false night, his bitterness overwhelming the pale attempt at humor. “Behold, God’s wrath! Why, herald, does his vengeance hurt so? Why give me great victory, then snatch it away? Why now, before I have accomplished anything?”

He clenched his hands on the rough wood and gritted his jaw, turning his face towards the dark benighted waves, but nonetheless Montjoy saw hot tears falling, briefly glittering, fractured beads of anguish before they were lost in the ocean of water pouring out of the sky. Now the king was screaming his questions into the teeth of the howling rain, his eyes pinned to the swirling sky. Outlined against the storm-brought night Montjoy’s vision churned uneasily with memories of the dark nightmarish hold, the king a proud and dashing _grand cheval_ , the lines of whose silhouette evoked ghostly generations of illustrious ancestors, now rendered impotent by the empty air, and gnashing its teeth and wielding vast iron shod hooves it sought to battle rude phantasms but could only ever hope to hurt itself.

“We are not yet dead,” he screamed.

Impatient, Henry waved it all away as trivia, and pulling the herald close to him said into his ear, “Are you ready to die?” Montjoy shrugged. He looked up at Henry’s searing torment, and he looked down the side of the ship into the churning depths, thoughts spinning, and said, deadly serious, “One way, or another—” Henry shook his head furiously, and then, shook the herald furiously by the fistful of shirt he held tightly bound in one fist. “I am not. I have not yet done what I have set out to do.” When he met the herald’s gaze, his eyes had crystallized in the intense ferocity of his raw desire. “I will not.” _Why do you not answer him, God. Why do you leave it all to me?_ Montjoy put his arms around the king, and held him tightly to bind up the tears of passion in his placid calm. Though he had no explanation, his voice was sure and certain.

“Then you will not.”

It seemed to him that Henry relaxed into the embrace, relinquishing some of his wrought fear and anger in a sigh of deepest sorrow. “To have your conviction—” The herald pressed his mouth to the king’s ear to be heard over the howling and the violent slapping of the sails, his eyes fixed on the struggling seas beyond as if searching for a sign of God’s will or God’s wrath. “Ten thousand mounted knights—and your certainty was as unmoving as the whole earth. I trembled to behold it. I believe in it now.” He felt a preternatural serenity as he held the king, all qualms and pangs of conscience strangely silent.

“My conviction is born of yours.”

He no longer heard the storm, all its deafening thrashing moot in the surf of his own inner turmoil, all its clamor nothing beside the raging force within his mind, that seemed to move his mouth while he stared on fearfully, and unbelieving. “God was with thee then. He is with thee now. Why shouldst thou fear the simple storm?”

Henry was silent, his hold tightening on the herald, his feet confident as they started to climb the crest of a massive wave and the deck tilted wildly beneath them. It seemed like he had nothing to say, and the herald had nothing to add, but the sight of the yawning lightless abyss before them as they reached the summit of the wave made him tremble with a nameless fear. Though he was faced away from the terrifying sight, Henry seemed to understand the danger of it and right at the cusp he knelt down, the herald kneeling with him, to shelter by the rise of the railing and brace against its juncture for the inevitable plummet, never once relinquishing his fervent hold.

They fell and fell. The herald heard violent screams and bloody oaths. They bobbed in and out of the screaming in his head, no more real or imagined. He might have screamed but he was biting down so hard he felt the iron tang of blood hit his tongue the same time the seawater came rushing down on both their heads, so that for a second he could breathe only water and might have panicked except he knew from the king’s unrelenting warmth that he had not yet washed over the edge. When the deck leveled and the paralyzing terror had subsided he gently detached himself, as if detaching his mind from the whole of reality. In the sudden chill he hugged his arms close to prevent shivering. Henry was staring at him again, in that serious, level way that meant he was seeing through the cloth and flesh to the soul.

The king had white salt rimming his eyebrows and around his lips, giving him the fearsome visage of a sea god, awoken by thunder, and when he opened his mouth to speak the herald looked away, if only to ward off Poseidonic condemnation. In that brief moment when they both faced down towards the stern they could only watch, horrified, as a man struggling up the length of the planks to reach the king, almost at his destination, was suddenly struck in the head by a falling length of wood. As he began to fall, unconscious, both king and herald had started moving, but before they could reach out and grab him he had toppled unconscious over the side and into the raging froth. Immediately, Montjoy saw an impulse shift in the king’s eyes, a huge, heroic, idiotic, impulse with the momentum of a charging bull, and could think of nothing else but to forestall its impact into the king’s conscious mind. It was madness and in further, panicked madness he swept coils and coils of heavy rope from its sprawling disarray on the deck into the king’s arms. Henry had time to utter “No-“, horror touching his eyes with a fevered shine, before the herald grabbed the long unraveled end and leaped over the side.

 _At least this way, the king could not blame him._  
At least this way, if he died, he would have good cause.  
At least this way—  
  
He hit the water with a punch that took his breath away. _Dear God, what am I doing?_ In the water so cold it was moving ice he gave thanks to the numbness and the temporary illicit strength it blessed him with. Freedom from tearing agony meant he could swim towards the sinking man. _Madness, for an Englishman, have I gone mad?_ Any fleeting warmth was torn from his body at the moment of its production. Every other violently gasped breath was tainted by seawater that sought to choke and blind him as the tossing water sent him every which way but towards his target. It was like fighting against the movement of the earth. There was no sound but a constant roaring of mysterious nature. There was no movement except the entire sea. There was no heat except that which is the strange doppelganger of blistering cold.

_No. Not for the fool Englishman, but for the fool English king. Except the fool turned out to be me._

He was shocked by the sudden impact of the man’s arm on his, and when he dived down to save the man he was shocked again by the impact of the man’s body against his shoulder, as if his mind had not grasped the reality and was viewing the struggles of the body from the safety of the rail. Henry must have been watching vigilantly because he had no sooner surfaced with the unconscious man than he felt the stiff tug of the rope, towing them briskly through the water, and then up the side of the ship, burning the arm around which the rope was wrapped with a cold, aching flame that promised all kinds of future torment.

_And the traitor turned out to be me._

Surrounded by staring sailors, some with their hands still fastened tightly around the rope they fetched up on the deck like two fell monsters from the deep, one shaking and coughing with enough force to convulse his body, the other still and silent as the grave. Henry knelt beside them both, clearly conflicted, not knowing which to turn towards, but the herald flapped an agitated hand towards the unconscious man even as he covered his heaving mouth with the other, and finally the king bent over the Englishman, animated with distress. Instantly the sailors clustered around the two of them, and Montjoy took advantage of Henry’s distraction to brush off the concerned helping hands that were supporting him up and hobble away at desperate speed.

Knowing he only had a few moments before the king would notice, he hit the doors with frightening force and stumbled into the soothing flickering dimness of the corridor, crashing thankfully against the support of the close walls. Through a blur of exhaustion and cold, he recognized the elderly doctor, waiting there at the entrance, and with white-lipped effort pulled himself upright to cut him off before he could speak, “Go away, Thomas. I do not want your help.” His voice was rough from screaming and breathing and swallowing salt, and he swayed where he stood but he found the strength to fend off the older man’s hands from the rage and hatred boiling up out of his disappointment in himself. “I thank you for your concern,” he said, grabbing the doctor’s shirt with a force that defied his own weakness, “but I find I need remind you that I am your enemy.”

When he had let go and pushed past, Thomas said mildly, “You are tired, herald. And dangerously cold. Let me take you to my room to rest.” Montjoy paused for a moment to contemplate the offer, his eyes flat and humorless, and rounded on him acidly, “Dear God, doctor, here in this weak and tired body, is there still a piece you want?” The doctor drew back uneasily as the herald advanced on him, every word an oil-tipped arrow burning with brilliant flame, “By all means, extract it! Take it! Use it as you please! A piece for everyone!”

Shockingly sudden, the herald’s voice became crystal ice, coldly cutting. “You Englishmen have taken enough of me. I, too, have forgotten the enemy.” As seawater drained from his clothes and ran down his face and neck with the searing sensation of new baptism, the herald turned away, his voice descending into soft despondency. “God damn you all as madmen. I have gone mad with you.” He had already vanished down into the darkness of the ship’s interior when the king came crashing through the doors in panicked pursuit, and the physician shook his head solemnly. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	9. Better a Coward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Than a traitor and a fool.

Thomas ducked through the narrow portal into an atmosphere taut with restless silence, little alleviated by the small noises; the tapping of iron on wood, or the whisper of surf through hairline cracks in the battered planking. The animals had shed their frenzied lathered skin and now stirred sheepish in their temporary stalls, lipping distastefully at broken and dirty straw to distract their minds from the fetid air and damp shifting ground. Midway down the central aisle, he saw the herald illuminated in a delicate fringe of light cast by a slowly swinging lantern, its haphazard rotation around a rusty iron nail giving him the unnatural aspects of shifting shadows and tenuous forms.

He was perched on the edge of a small crate, his back arched, his elbows propped on the knees of his bent, splayed legs, and his clasped hands pressed against his forehead, holding up his heavily bowed head. He had stripped off his drenched shirt and tunic; they were hanging off a rope line nearby, and a rough horse blanket was draped unevenly about his shoulders, its matted fibers darkened in spots where coiling locks of hair continued to trickle small disregarded streams. A bay mare stretched her head towards him, as far as possible, anxious as a mother with her muzzle inches from his down-turned face, her breath stirring his fringe, the only movement in the tableau. His shoulder wound was livid against his wintered white skin, its half-closed seam puckered and ugly, the bandages torn off in a hurry as salt water had laid fangs into blasted nerves, and old welts rose in stark lines across his upper body, an illogical pattern of crisscrossing weaves vivid scarlet except where bruising had rendered the skin in corpse greens and browns and hid all other colors. There was a whippy thinness everywhere that spoke of strength pared down by the road to the lean bare essence at its hardened heart. He did not look up at the doctor’s entry, and except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, Montjoy was motionless as Thomas approached.

Not wanting to advance directly upon him, the physician started down a side aisle, his feet crunching loudly on the straw-strewn ground and once, ringing out as he accidently kicked aside a discarded pan. All the horses raised their heads at the sudden sound, shrill in the stillness, and cheerfully he spoke to them, and to the air and to no one in particular. “I remember once, years ago, John Lancaster Herald delivered to me on a cart, moaning in agony. He had broken his arm and leg, and nearly cracked open his head.” The doctor raised a finger to stroke the head of his horse, and said with a grin, “I asked him how he had come by such grievous injury, what natural disaster had struck him down, and deeply melancholic he turned to me and complained. Thomas, I was only jumping my horse across a broken bridge—fell into the river instead.”

The memory made him chuckle softly, and tweak the end of his beard. When the horse, uninterested in the doctor’s empty hand, had turned away disappointed, Thomas cut back across the stalls at an angle, emerging some distance behind the herald and ambled leisurely up the aisle, reminiscing to himself. “Naturally, I asked him what could have possessed him to attempt such a reckless thing. And you know what he said next, Montjoy King of Arms?” Tentatively, the doctor lifted the coarse blanket off the sitting man and tossed it to one side. The herald’s eyes flickered momentarily beneath pale paper-thin lids veined with purple and white, registering his presence but unresponsive like a sleeping man trapped in an endless dream. Tomas unfolded the cloak he had brought with him, a thick luxurious affair of grey wool liberally lined with rabbit fur and cast it with great care over the herald’s shoulders so that it cascaded down his curled frame in generous waves, the newfound warmth causing his shoulders to sag slightly as numbed tension receded into pain.

“He said, ‘I know a French herald, my once and only apprentice. He ridicules me for fording streams and skirting cliffs, instead of leaping them. But you should have seen him jump, doctor, though he was terrible at everything else—he could make you believe horses fly.’ Despite the obvious pain he was in, John had smiled wistfully. He said, ‘Every time, for a brief moment, his mouth would gape open in this true smile, this rare joy that manifested nowhere else. Foolish me, I was only—trying for this point of view—His rare point of view.’”

_What truths you must hear in other men’s agony, dear doctor. What manner of innermost secrets laid bare by pain._

Thomas waited five, ten heartbeats, and when it seemed like the herald would not answer, Montjoy suddenly whispered, hoarse and mordant, “Dear John— he who heartily enjoys wading up to his chest in freezing water and plowing through thorny undergrowth, like many Englishmen no doubt. He chooses for his mount horses built for the cart, or the plow. Lumbering heavy beasts, thick chests and legs like stone pillars—How could he then ask them to jump?” The herald slowly raised his head to meet the doctor’s eyes, perfectly serious as he said, “I never thought he would try—you must think I am a fool. A rash and arrogant fool.” Droplets flew as he shook his head with weary misery.

“I am so sorry, Thomas, what madness it was—to say those things to you, please—forgive me.”  
“Already forgiven and forgotten. Think no more of it.”  
“The—man?”  
“Alive and well. Though he shall have a cough and a headache, you have given him back his life. You, on the other hand—”

Montjoy raised a hand to forestall the physician’s admonishment, a wary defensive look already coming over him; weary eyes set deeply above tense pale cheeks. “No tricky explanations, or necessary lies if I just up and die, doctor, it seems like such a relief—” he sighed, “But, perhaps I should not tempt fate so—tell me, how is it?”

The royal physician leaned down to place his ear against Montjoy’s back. His breathing was steady if labored, clear but rough, almost convincing of no more ill use than simple fatigue but when he lifted aside the cloak he saw that the deeper, more dangerous gash in the herald’s back once more gaped open, its yawning pink interior cringingly exposed to the open air, a sluggish crimson trickle escaping therein like drool from a dead man’s grimace. Sensitive fingers picked up the gentle shiver that had set in, perhaps imperceptible even to the herald himself, and though the skin at his shoulder was chill to the touch, his forehead was pulsing with rabid heat, where putting a fingertip to his tongue, Tomas knew that that hot sweat was freely mingling with seawater.

“Is it too much to ask for a week of rest, Montjoy?” he said as he unrolled new bandages with the grim determination of a man attacking a mountain with a spade. “You are teetering on the knife’s edge, and English weather will do you no favors. Come with me, I will treat your wounds.” Montjoy hissed sharply as astringent alcohol sunk into the open wound, and would have arched his back in agony but for the doctor’s firm restraining hold. Through gritted teeth he eked out word by deliberately enunciated word as a sharp French accent crept in through cracks wrought by agony in the smooth face of his proficiency and broke his intonations across its back. “Thank you for your offer, but I will be well taken care of at the house of the Bishop.”

“Has the ambassador returned so soon?” Montjoy shrugged casually at his astonishment. “His Grace the Bishop of Bourges was crossing to England even as your king was crossing to France. Doubtless he will be at pier.” At the doctor’s disapproving frown, he continued placidly, “He is ever far-sighted, His Grace, a most sincere ambassador, but nothing can be done if kings have made their minds up before the ink is dry on the paper. All they truly need is a herald to convey their words.” Suddenly, his voice wavered, discord tearing apart the even, melodious phrases as thoughts gave way to violent inarticulate emotions that poured into his mind from a dimly known blackness, poorly sieved through a foreign language. “Men like me live and die for kings, Thomas. Live and die at their word.” The grey shades of silent implications haunted him in the corners of his eyes, visions of treacherous embraces given grey form, and lost whispers of traitorous words thought and uttered as terrifying as the howling of poltergeists in empty rooms. _Not hold their hands, or accept their embraces…_

“You leapt into the sea, in a thunderstorm—” Thomas began a question, only to be cut off.  
“Do you have a cure for madness?”  
“There are such cures, but you would not like them—nor are you mad.”  
“Then what would you call it?”  
“Courage, perhaps?”

The herald sprang up in bitter self-recrimination, wrenching his arm away and tearing off the cloak to push it stubbornly back into the doctor’s hands. He trailed long ribbons of bandages from his shoulder like shreds of angel wings as he whirled around to face Thomas, lurching unsteadily against a pillar before the turn had completed.

“ _Mieux vaut coüard_ ,” he shouted, but the wildness subsided instantly to a forlorn whisper as he hung his head, “—than a traitor and a fool. I would that I had simply let him go.”  
“You saved a man’s life.”  
“An Englishman.” Leaning heavily against the post he spat the two words like a virulent oath, hoping it was potent enough to cleanse the betrayal burning in his mouth, and could not meet the doctor’s eyes. “Sorry Thomas, I—”  
“It is eating you up, isn’t it Herald, thinking you are mad because you love my king.”

Montjoy’s eyes widened, but his lips thinned in dismay at the suggestion made living flesh and given inexpressible form. Thomas came up to him and when he did not shy away, settled warm, gentling hands on his shoulders, gathering up the loose cotton cloth like they were the shreds of his mind and patiently tying them off.

“You are not mad, but you are perceptive. It is your downfall or so you think it is. Henry is everything a king should be, and more—Why not love him? It is as natural as loving the sun for giving warmth, or the breeze for cooling.” The herald snorted scornfully, but his heart was not in it and his reply close to inaudible.

“Henry of England is not my king. I do not love him.”

The sudden creaking of the porthole door as it opened made them both jump, but where the doctor craned his neck around the pillar curiously, the herald with quiet certainty had already ducked beneath his arms and started purposefully down the aisle, his head down and his body dipping with just the slightest limp where he favored his right side.

_Dear God, days of solitude and clear thinking on the road, promises made to myself, old oaths renewed, all shattered by a single decision made in a single instant—revealing the truth…_

Henry had already changed into dry clothes, though their clashing colors and rumpled, beaten air betrayed his haste, and nervous energy took hold of him as he spotted the doctor and nearly ran up to his side. “Where is he?” Even as the question was urgently posed, his eyes darted up and down the aisle piercing its ever-shifting shadows, but the herald had already hidden himself in the depths of the cluttered space, and now made no noise, nor gave any sign that he wished to speak to the king. Heaving a sigh, Thomas wished the king had listened to his advice to stay in his room, and said as much, demurring the question with soft admonishment. Henry eyed him with suspicion.

“I heard voices.”  
“The hold is full of strange noises, my liege.”

It was an unconvincing reply at the very best, though the doctor was utterly calm as he said it, causing the king to huff impatiently and stalk off, having decided he would continue to be unhelpful. As if to catch the man he wanted red-handed in hiding, Henry lunged into the makeshift stalls at random, severely startling several animals into neighing their outrage, and called back to the doctor as he swept between the aisles.

“You said he was here.”  
“I only just arrived, your majesty. If he is here, you will find him I’m sure.”

_Keep just ahead of him, just around the corner, just out of sight. Hide the sound of footsteps amongst the louder noises of the horses. You walk like shadow, Henry of England, but the animals betray you, and I know the arrangement of the stalls far better than you—and I will not face you now._

Certain he had checked in every row for any sign of the Frenchman, Henry arrived back at where he started disappointed, one hand pressed against his mouth in worried thought. Thomas had not moved from his place throughout the frantic inspection, instead he had sat down on the same crate Montjoy had recently vacated, and was watching the king from beneath the lantern’s light as he spun around and paced.

“Where could he be, Thomas? He is as good as vanished…”  
“It is a big ship, your majesty. And he does not want to be found.”  
“Why not?” The king asked sharply. “He has saved a man.”  
“An Englishman, your majesty? Any good Frenchman would be mortified half to death.” The king’s head tilted slightly as he considered its plausibility, then shook it away like an irritant.  
“Montjoy is a good man.”  
“Indeed, he is. Tell me, your majesty, what was the first thing you did when you saw the man fall?” Henry answered instantly, with total certainty.  
“I started towards the side of the ship.”  
“And the herald?”  
“He thrust some coils of rope into my hands. Then he jumped over the side.”  
“He thrust you away from the side. Occupied you with other things. Took your place.”

A tension came over Henry’s face, like his skin struggled to contain a brewing storm as violent as the one passing overhead and its dark winds blew through his eyes.

“Not only an Englishman, but the English king. You wonder, your majesty, why he is hiding?”  
“Sweet Jesu—he risked his life without a moment’s hesitation.”

Thomas rose with a theatrical groan of fatigue, his hand as it tugged at his beard covering his small smile. “I said he was here,” he said in a low whisper, pitched so the herald would not hear, “He is. But handle him lightly, Henry, or he will shatter.” He raised his voice deliberately to fill the entire space with its threat. “Wear the cloak, Montjoy, or the cold will kill you, I promise.”

Montjoy cursed inwardly as the doctor gave him up, glaring at the man’s back from where he was ensconced in the awkward shadow between two ill-placed stalls as Tomas left the hold, leaving Henry thoughtfully considering the space he was in and the fine grey cloak puddled on the ground at the king’s feet. In between the wave-sound and the rustlings of life the herald held his breath so it would not rasp, and hoped that the thudding of his heart was softer beyond the private confines of his mind.

When Montjoy did not make an appearance, Henry called out for him, and not knowing which way to face, he considered the herald’s mount sadly.

From where he peered out, he could see the king was distraught. Henry had not stopped to dry his hair completely and it still hung in dull wet spikes, the occasional drop landing on his face as he whipped his searching gaze back and forth, straining through the flickering light. He had changed into warm hose in a royal purple so deep it was almost black, and a long shirt made of stiff, thick material over which an elegantly decorated viridian doublet had been roughly pulled on for warmth, but left half-unbuttoned, its rich velvet interior exposed an emerald shade. Had he not been afraid of detection Montjoy would have chuckled at the gaudy ensemble, garish enough to match the royal surcoat with its quartered colors clashing as violently as their symbolic nations warred, and far from the king’s preferred muted shades. As Henry turned his back the herald slipped out of hiding and moved into the next aisle, timing his footsteps with the focused desperation of the unlikely saboteur.

“I’m sorry—”

There was a brief sigh, and through the slots in the boarding Montjoy watched the king rub tiredly at his eyes as he stalked through the aisle. Fierce winter rain had wrung high color from his countenance, and the bruised shadows of long days and nights marked the smooth skin beneath his eyes, so that in every line and contour of his form he was more darkly present, more alive, like an airy royal luminescence had given way to strength and steel that pressed more heavily on the world’s frail paper, a watercolor inked, a pastel retouched in oil.

“Kings need not apologize, your majesty.”

As soon as he spoke they both moved, an unconscious paired duet, the king immediately tearing into the next aisle, from which his voice had come, the herald immediately ducking into the previous, anticipating Henry’s movements. The king saw only swinging shadows, its owner long gone, and frowned, anger and impatience touching him, the tedious game of hide and seek seeming an unnecessary annoyance, brought on by mysterious fears.

“Where are you, Montjoy? Show yourself.”  
“I am not here.”  
“Nonsense herald—”

They wove in and out of the twilight and once or twice Henry thought he saw movement, had finally caught the herald out in the open, but as soon as he neared it would take shape as a snuffling horse or a hanging rope swayed by the ship’s rhythm.

“There is no reason for a French herald to be aboard the royal vessel. There is no possibility of a French herald saving an Englishman in a storm. Therefore, I am not here.”

The long melodious sentences trailed through the rickety rows like translucent freely floating strands of cobweb, only visible at a certain angle in a certain light, but their lingering snares halted the king in place.

“What are you hiding from?”

In the corner of a stall crouched behind the comforting bulk of a stallion, Montjoy paused to think about the question.

"Treason and betrayal.”

Like mercury on wood, speaking the words leeched out his fear, leaving him with only emptiness. He slipped through the gaps in the back of the enclosure and waited in the next aisle for the king to come upon him. In moments Henry had seen his tall silhouette emerge as if from nowhere, and stood in front of the herald.

“I think more than that. What is your king to you?”

Montjoy held his gaze wordlessly. Henry pressed forward in anguished determination, and the herald allowed the king to grip his shoulders.

“What is Charles to you?”  
“My liege. My king.”  
“More than that.”  
“Nothing more.”  
“Alliances and treaties fall to pieces like so much sodden paper, lords and knights forswear themselves this day without a single thought. And you, little herald, you rip yourself apart to expel any drop of disloyal blood?”

It was not the steadily throbbing agony in his shoulder and back that moved him, nor the burning in his arms and legs from the swim, or the shivering brought on by the slow inexorable chill working its way to the bone. In fact the herald heard almost nothing of what the king had said, so loud the inexplicable roaring in his head through which only the arch, scornful disbelief in the king’s words penetrated, not its meaning, but it was Henry’s eyes that convinced him, because they were stubborn, stormy seas alit with the freak lightning that was fear, as fierce as he had ever seen, unmatched even by the eyes that had harangued the thunderstorm. All in his power to calm and soothe and settle, all in his hands.

_Where from, this fear? What are you thinking? Where are you, God? Leaving it all to me again._

“Once, you asked, what is this guilt? This hatred of God,” Montjoy said with soft serenity, observing the cut on his palm distantly.

Thrown off balance, Henry rallied, steadying himself, his breathing, aware that he had been shouting, aware that he had been seething with unnamed rage, his emotional turmoil sinking away into the herald’s powerful calm like the rich earth accepting the rain. “I remember,” he said, releasing his grip, releasing his anger. “Tell me.”

“I had two brothers,” said the herald, with the same even tone he used to report news of murder, and massacre, and heartbreaking sorrow.

“When he was twelve my youngest brother, promised to the church since his birth, took a knife and stabbed three priests to death. Then himself, in penance.”

Henry suddenly remembered the dark heartache that had turned the herald’s head after the battle, when asked about his family. It was the same misery that turned his head now, wrenched back into that same sepia set of memories.

“He left a letter of explanation. It turned out they had been taking advantage of the children under their care.”

From some distant shore Montjoy was aware of how flat his voice was, how level and contained, as if he were reporting of strangers. In some distant sky he remembered when he had told the same story to John, and how deranged he had been then, a screaming, wailing madman swearing vengeance on every man and house of God. He had nearly lost himself.

“The guilt drove my father to his death. The crime drove my second brother on crusade. And I, my liege summoned.”

Montjoy could see Henry was holding his breath. He could see the slight tension in the neck where muscles clenched, and the lack of movement at his chest. He saw the king’s eyes flicker and his mouth twitch, moving in tandem with some unknown emotion flooding his mind. And he saw it all through a shifting grey film, a view from miles away, an impersonal deity from a mountaintop distantly observing a tragedy that would happen, that has already happened.

“I thought he would say, get far away from here, before your disgrace tarnishes the court. I thought he would say, you are the only one left to be punished for this heinous crime. But he said, your father was Montjoy King of Arms. That hereditary title is yours, if you wish it.”

_I remember stuttering, and stumbling over my reply, but I do not remember what it was I was trying to say. A million different things at once, every possible facet of gratitude and doubt and confusion tripping my tongue._

_I wanted to tell him how little experience I had, a minor herald apprenticed to an Englishman. I wanted to tell him, how much my father’s title meant. In the end, I said everything and nothing. A mortifying first performance of a herald before his king and master, but the mad king had been kind._

“I must have seemed shocked, because he laughed at my expression, and he said, What were you expecting? A death sentence? No—if you have even one half the audacity and bravery of your brother, I will be glad you are my herald.”

_And lucid, the mad king had looked into my soul. He must have seen something there. I believe it. More than I believe in myself, I believe it._

“He said, But you must have ten times his tolerance for pain and abuse, because heralds cannot kill those who insult them.”

Henry was wide-eyed now, knowing only of the frail madman afraid of shattering himself, of the weak link shattering the chain of the House of Valois. Not this king who had valued so highly. So unlikely.

“He asked, Can I trust you, my herald?”

Aching sincerity was in every word, Montjoy reaching the end of his memory with a sad, beautiful smile. _What do you give the man who has given you everything? With horse, baton and tabard, he claims me. And I give him everything._

“For my liege, I would rather die, than be forsworn.”

_He had already turned away. I just caught his last words as he was leaving though it had been meant for him alone. He whispered to himself, We who have madness in our family tree, must be able to trust each other, because no one else will fully trust us ever again…_

Montjoy watched unblinking, hollow from revelation, as the king backed away, the storm in his demeanor far from subsided, but it was no longer fear that motivated it.

Henry thought, _What would I have done? I would have banished the kinsman of a God-forsaken murderer. I would have been—cold, impersonal justice._ The thought made him tremble with unease. _I would have been harsh._ He looked into a memory that made him question, that turned his wrath to doubt; the doubt was no less consuming, but it ate inwards towards its source instead.

“I—”

He thought the king began to apologize again, but perhaps Henry had truly heard him earlier because the king abruptly shut his mouth, shook his head, then smiled wanly.

“I have a ways to go, don’t I, herald? I did not think my Uncle had anything to teach me. But I was wrong.”

He did not know how to respond, and said nothing, which must have been the right response because Henry turned without another word and dashed out through the low door. A sigh of relief followed the sudden silence, and the herald collapsed weakly beside his horse, gathering up the doctor’s cloak with barely disguised need.

“ _Kings_ —my dear,” he said, stroking her nose. “Is there one that is not slightly mad?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	10. Triumph, the Morning of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just one sorrow amongst a thousand smiles.

Hydra-headed, argus-eyed, the chimera crowd roars its fierce appreciation, its many mad arms waving like garish anemone in a seething sea of sound, a thousand voices surging forward in unison, filling the air with jubilation as the king’s ship sweeps into view all tattered sails and salt-crusted sail-hands and weary regal dignity. They shouted and they sang, hymns more joyful than skilled, cheers that birthed and built and boomed volcanic, rainbow noise and violent color bursting through an open porthole that was his window to the world, where as a wide-eyed child gawks through a castle crenellation he stretched his head out to peer down the length of the hull and watch; a hundred little boats bobbing alongside the royal vessel, a patchwork escort of civilian ships with oars and crates and stinking fish, their owners braving wild rocking perches to proudly hail shorebound acquaintances as they strut and preen at their share of the glory; they flock like clumsy, eager ducklings to hug hard by the storm-battered hull, though the hulking brig bumped them and tossed them and washed water over their sides; spooked by the furor the seabirds swoop and shriek overhead in swirling ivory clouds and a beaming sun eager to atone for the sins of the storm lit Henry’s homecoming with its most glorious golden light.

 _And in that glare, how he shines._  
_Like a native son,_  
_Oh, to Apollo or Sol or Helios an ode,  
_ _Your blood is found again, centuries on_

Henry stands at the rail of his ship, a lean figure starkly outlined against the great scarlet cloak that stirs fitfully at his back; the same sea breeze lifts the ends of his hair and sets them dancing a halo’s attendance. There are jewels at his head, his throat, his chest, his waist, such a brilliance of wealth as to fund a hundred such ships, but crowned in his victory at last, Henry’s eyes are far more radiant than any mere stone and crystal shine; they regard the crowd with a ferocious pride and an intense sparkling joy so attractive, so infectious that the herald cannot help but feel it banish the bitter sorrow in his heart, if only for that blissful moment before the sharp self-recrimination sets in.

Sunlight picks out the quartered arms he wears in their lush fields of colored silk, luxuriously embroidered in thread of gold; the preening lions and the precious lilies, manes rippling, petals falling open. Henry raises his hands, and the resulting sound is one great animal howl of adoration; a thrumming shock conducted by the body entire, a shared sound borne in a single organ. Heard in the heart, it fills it up like divine manna; it numbs the herald like deadly nightshade. Sparking electric, golden light runs fluidly up the king’s elaborate chain and its fine links of precious garnet and pearl and amethyst to find the vibrant ruby clasp at his throat and set the matching crown in his hair alight, its sixteen points burning brightly crimson. He is a Plantagenet King of England through and through, the return of all their glory and the future of all their promise. Henry lowers his hands, and the resulting silence is deafening. He holds his head high, his back is straight, his shoulders squared, and he greets the masses as their king.

“Englishmen—”  

In his mind’s eye, Montjoy can see him paused before the doors that would open his face to the burning exultation, his brothers at his side, his uncles behind him, his lords and his knights and his loyal followers packing the damp and narrow corridors; all of them in the most beautiful velvet and satin and silk, luxurious creatures of war with jeweled scabbards hanging empty from belts heavy with golden buckles and ribbon slashed sleeves, some more comfortable in their finery, others wearing their riches and their chains as stiffly as another coat of armor. Perhaps Henry had acknowledged his supporters before striding through that open portal, nodding left, then right, Bedford and Gloucester nodding back, and Exeter shifting behind them with impatience. Idly, the French herald wonders if the legions at Agincourt had seemed less daunting to the king, less demanding of him than his own baying countrymen hungry for their glory returned, but no, he thinks to himself as he surveyed those lined up at the water’s edge, the dockside rabble is nothing but awe-struck Englishmen with worship in their hearts and cheers stopping up their ears.  Two thousand years ago, they would have made of him a new god in a pantheon of heroes.

 _No, they will love you regardless,_  
_For as you claimed—_  
_They shall be famed,_  
_For there the sun shall greet them.  
_ _—All has come true_

Newly painted posts run the length of the freshly scoured dock. Proudly they fly the lions and the unicorn and the rose gules, and a hundred lesser flags of all colors, snapping gaily in the brisk sea-scented wind like a forest of so many paradisiacal conifers. By each emblem and its distance to the royal arms Montjoy can situate the sprawl of English royalty in their seats of power before the throne, but the arrangement tells him nothing he does not already know. A semi-circular space has been carved out from the press of bodies at the water by stoic guardsmen in their best burnished breastplates and their polished helms, spears in hand with pennants fluttering at the ends. There in that island of calm, those who would receive the king in state stand waiting; an elevated gathering of England’s finest, crimson and gold and royal purple in plush attendance, their jewels a gleaming many-hued constellation shedding rich rainbows at every inconsequential movement.

The hooded churchmen with their crucifixes in soft shining gold and beringed hands in pious attitude. They receive their conquering king like rich men receiving fine wine, as if deserved, as if preordained, the way of things. The pale-skinned wives and sisters, elegant solitary swans standing close together yet immensely alone. Look for the dark shadows beneath red-tinged eyes to find true love, and look for the wary, the thoughtful, and the proud. The marcher lords who do not have to sail the strait to go to war, they are especially pleased to welcome Henry home and show it in excess with their air of eager anticipation. They cannot wait for the king’s flag to fly from castle walls, a beacon of safeguard for their own borders so they too might have some respite from the constant menace that is their nominal polity. Those aged fathers who had sent sons in their stead, or those young sons who had watched their fathers buckle armor and sharpen swords, they were there with anxious eyes darting restlessly from face to face across the deck, hands clasped with worry.

At the very front of the pack, dark-eyed, dark-haired, Thomas of Lancaster, calm and unruffled by the wait, and leaning over to say something to his uncle that looks very much like a jest to the herald, but the Plantagenet bishop, thin-lipped and solemn for all the celebratory finery of his sumptuous scarlet robes, only shakes his head slightly in response. The wide crucifix about his neck shivers on its thick golden chain and opals wink from the four splayed corners where Christ had bled from sacred wounds. Lurking behind him, his brother of the cloth and his slim shadow, yet different in every imaginable way, his reverse doppelganger, the French Archbishop William of Bourges is a somber raven mocking the birds of paradise behind their backs, his cassock plain and his mantle simple, accentuating his ecclesiastically rare slenderness and the sharp intimidating lines of his face that he marshals for diplomacy like a rapier, razor-tipped and penetrating. A severe maroon cloak is his one concession to color, and that only a diplomatic one, Montjoy suspects, much like the thin smile intermittently decorating his face. He can only sympathize with the ambassador, whose thoughts must linger on the bold faces of his brothers setting off to war even as he stands a darkling crow amidst these men of brighter colors, these enemies, waiting to welcome a king who might well have struck the fatal blow himself and fielding the English scorn with no more shield than a wan and lightless smile.

 _I can see the strain from here, your Grace._  
_And how much more strenuous will it become,  
_ _When you find out which of your kinsmen have fallen?_

The herald cranes his head upwards, blinking and blinded by the glare of the sun, because Henry has already started to speak, and into the fresh silence his words are falling like new snow, beautiful, transient, but eternal.

“At Harfleur, their walls crumbled.  
At Agincourt, their hearts failed.  
By sword and bow we are given proof  
How righteous our cause!  
Divine justice our backing,  
God Himself has judged  
A thousand French knights for every Englishman!”

When he swept his eyes through the crowd the herald did not see one mouth not wide with exultation, nor one set of eyes not upturned towards the king, even the guardsmen wrenching their heads around to set their eyes on the ship because all their training could not have prepared them for the spectacle of this triumph. The morning sun is rising behind Henry, and for all the world he is an electric demiurge calling forth the world into being between raised arms, a new world in which the disgraces of the past are redeemed by the shedding of blood and the burning continent. Montjoy beheld something far different from their English raider princes and their greedy, grasping kings. He felt fear move him, for the first time, for his homeland, that for once it did not seem so absurd for this mean and rocky island chain to threaten the flaxen plains, the curling vines and soaring glassine spires of his home, because they had a conqueror before them, leading them.

_No King of England, if not King of France? What France will be left? What France?_

In the midst of the baying crowd, he has never felt more alone, more still, more silent, as if once again submerged in frigid waters with the surfing of the storm passing overhead like an alien dirigible, a massive, ponderous movement that is surprisingly noiseless, noticed but somehow unimportant. Every word the king speaks strikes him dully, like a tongue on a muted bell, drawing forth ringing tremors that remind him distantly of deep pain, as distant as thunder and lightning in the sky over some other forlorn place. It hurts more than he expected. He thinks back to honest, open words of praise, to a close embrace, a strong supportive touch, and feels nausea temporarily swamp his view of the king with chalky grey fog.

Roughly, he shakes his head to dislodge the daze, and realizes Henry has finished speaking. Now the king descends the carpeted gangway to meet his brother, his most trusted gatekeeper, with open arms. Henry Bolingbroke had four powerful sons, and they are a picture of familial unity and harmony, brothers embracing brothers across one terrifying Lancaster generation, each of them with their own particular smile shining out from the Plantagenet resemblance that is the first to strike the idle viewer’s eyes. No trace of any tension marring their kinship is apparent, nor does the crowd care as it heaves and hollers for the king’s attention to the sheer disregard of all else, even its own safety, and strains to bursting against the ranks of guards. It is witnessing the creation of a new Saint, and one whose efficacy is written indelibly in blood and fire.

Montjoy hangs back by the yawning mouth of the hold as sailors lift the coverings and run out the planks. They cut open a pure white gateway from mouldy shadow into vivid teeming heaven, but he only sees an endless ramp downwards, troubling him. The anxious stablehand takes one look at his expression and thinks twice about disturbing him. He has his hands full with Henry’s skittish champing mount, and twenty more in pairs behind her. The fine palfrey finally settles at a stern touch from the herald, and takes her first step forward onto the creaking wooden bridge. Led by the white mare, the procession of horses files past his stationary vigil, all clothed and jeweled as finely as their masters, with a year’s wages in gilding tempting hands and eyes from the riding tack and fierce feathers sprouting from their heads, tossing vivid color with every step.

As he gathers his own mount in hand and emerges subterranean blind into the open air, he is suddenly swept into a tight embrace, so unexpected he drops his reins out of shock. But his horse only snorts at the intruder in mild distasteful recognition, and he hears the welcome voice of his erstwhile mentor exclaim a breathy “Thank God!” There is a glittering in the English herald’s eyes, on the way to wetness, that sends a bittersweet shock through him, and he returns the embrace with thick feeling. “John,” he whispers, like a priest invoking sacred gospel, wincing slightly with the strength of the man’s grip. “I hear you’ve come back from the dead,” the Englishman smiles as he speaks but it is strained through the sieve of his deeply frowning worry and arrives at the other end in ragged tatters. “You certainly look it.” Montjoy shrugs stiffly in the encumbrance of his arms, as well as he can manage it.

“I will get to the end of the street. Will you ride by me?”  
“Of course.”

Henry has already mounted, now he stares out from his high seat down the dock towards them. His gaze falls only momentarily on the herald locked in his embrace before moving on, but in that single instant Montjoy sees the king’s expansive joy falter like a sputtering candle smoldering around an impurity in the wax, then Henry is tapping his heels against his mount impatiently. The white horse sets a high-stepping dignified pace, its neck a graceful cathedral arch ending in a delicate gargoyle head of strong granite lines and soft marbled veins. Around the king, his nobles coalesce into loose formation, each one matching his own steed to the lead.

“Here, take this.”  
“Thank you.”

_A flag to turn the eye. An Englishman to hide beside. Perfect for the Frenchman at this fine English triumph. But in truth, needless. Who will mark one sorrow in a thousand smiles?_

John helps him into his saddle, for which he is grateful, not knowing if his stiff unresponsive limbs and aching muscles could have managed it on his own, and with their tabards of office and their unfurled flags they are swept along in the procession with the rest of Henry’s heralds, just behind the king and his court, and the trumpeters so close behind them each blaring note of triumph stirs their banners with the wind of its passing. As they proceed into the city Montjoy can see into the windows of the upper floors; they have been thrown open to the street and housewives and servant girls alike fight for the opportunity to throw handfuls of herbs and fragrance onto the passing horses, an aromatic benediction that fills the air with the precious scent of rosemary and clematis and lavandin.

 _I can see the streets of Paris_  
_Filled with softly falling petals_  
_And its ladies giving kisses  
_ _To the victors of the battle_

“Look at all this.”  
“A most beautiful celebration.”  
“The triumph in London will be even greater. I can hardly even imagine it.”

He does not notice he is crying until he spies the worried look John throws him, but with one hand on the reins and one hand on the flag he has no way to wipe them away. Then he notices, he is far from the only one so afflicted, though tears of joy seem to bead and glitter like gems instead of streaming down the face like melting ice, grey and lifeless, leaving the eyes in a flat and silent depression. The crowds part before the procession, their faces blur as they slip by and he concentrates on keeping his fingers curled and his back straight, to make it through the triumph without giving way. Falling flowers make him think of grey goose feathers, and their whistling passage through the air. More than once, a sprig brushes him at the shoulder or back, and he twitches uneasily. At the rear of the royal entourage he sees the Duke of Orleans falling in beside the Archbishop. Occasionally, their horses shying closer to each other in the ebb and flow of the procession, their heads turn towards each other and he can only wonder what whispered words the two men exchange. News of the battle, perhaps, or orders from the captive to the ambassador to send up to the throne or across the channel.

 _I can see Henry of Monmouth,_  
_Henry of England, wayward prince_  
_And warrior king_  
_On his white horse, in the streets of Paris_  
_They are calling his name  
_ _They curse his name_

“Montjoy? Are you alright?”

_No…_

He sees Henry riding alone at the head of the procession, his horse is free from the milling herd and the reins are loose at its lips, it sets its own pace while its master seems lost in prayer, his head modestly bowed. At Harfleur he had dismounted, penitential, barefoot and bereft of weapons he had walked to the chapel of Saint Martin to give thanks to God, but this was England, this was his town and his triumph.

 _I can see the people of Harfleur_  
_Expelled from their houses_  
_They are robbed in the woods  
_ _Before they reach St-Aubin-de-Cretot_

“Yes—”  
“I think you have a fever.”  
“I think so too.”  
“Were you wounded in the battle?”  
"I'm fine."

_Only at heart._

Abruptly the king halts in the street, and guards scramble to clear the area around him. The reason is clear, at least to the herald, for they are just outside the church of Saint Michael, but for the lords who had not been with the king on campaign his actions are mysterious and they throw each other questioning glances across his shoulders. Without a word, Henry dismounts. His face is set with purpose. He removes his crown. He removes his jewels and his chains and his cloak, laying them at his feet. Then he enters the church, alone, and his men guard the doors behind him. Ponderously like the tentative extending of turtle heads after a shadow has passed overhead, the entire procession begins to dismount. The process ripples down from the head in a wave of action so coordinated it looks to be planned and his brothers are the first to swing off their horses, the youngest saying something that makes his elders laugh out loud. They do not share their brother’s piety, but for the sake of the conqueror they accept the ascetic without grousing.

*

When the wave finally reached the heralds Montjoy lowered his flag onto his saddle and discreetly scrubbed the wetness off his cheeks before dismounting. He had barely time to catch his breath from the searing shock of touching down as a hearty greeting washed over him, wealthy in both warmth and formality. “Montjoy King of Arms.” Turning, he returned the salutation with more reserve, and a sketch of a bow for the man who, strong, sharp and vigorous, reminded the herald distinctly of the king who had appointed him. “Guyenne King of Arms,” he replied. Here was Henry’s herald, coming upon him like a jouster down the centerline, full of certain purpose. _Enough to make a man turn his horse and flee._ Ever well-spoken, ever self-composed, the dignified Englishman was every inch of his heraldic heritage, but if the whole of the rowdy English college did him homage, it was not for his father lately Lancaster King of Arms, but for his own imposing merits.

William eyed him openly from head to toe, perhaps noting the dampness of his clothes, the white hems and salt stiffened lines. His gaze lingered on Montjoy’s right shoulder, where he knew the herald was wounded, and on his trembling left hand, where he could only suspect. From the crease in his brow, Montjoy read his friendly concern, but far more troubling was the seed of curiosity planted behind his eyes, the growth of which could steal into the smallest crack, and sunder the strongest structure.

“You look like hell my friend,” William said in a mild tone of voice.  
“Thank you for your kind words,” Montjoy replied, equally blandly.  
“I hear you saved a man.”

Montjoy did not meet the Englishman’s level, enquiring gaze head on, his own sliding away sheepishly as he smiled to deflect the piercing attention, and failing.  
“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”  
“It is nothing to demur.”  
“ _There is_ nothing to demur,” he said firmly, daring his friend to accuse him of some direct action, but the English herald veered his approach around the glaring opposition.

“I sent a physician over to the chapter in Calais,” William said, “and the poor man found only an empty bed. He actually came back to berate me for wasting his time.” Silent, but sincere, Montjoy made an apologetic gesture, and the English herald regarded it with frank accusation. “Very irresponsible, Montjoy, very irresponsible. Is it your plan to die on my watch and so embarrass me?”  
“I promise you, I shall be the more embarrassed should I perish under your watchful eye.”

The exchange startled John from his own idle conversation, and over the heads of their milling horses he admonished them.

“Hoy, you two gravediggers! Why so much talk of dying there? It is ill-luck on a day like this one.”  
“John, Richard, come look at this man,” he said, beckoning their attention over to Montjoy’s general dismay, “Apparently robbers have been at him. Robbers!”

William’s mouth was expressively downturned and his expression was far more severe than his words conveyed, matching the hard steel in his gaze that did not balk at repudiating the absurdity of the claim. Montjoy felt the weight of two more pairs of eyes bear down on him, spectating the exchange like eager Romans at the sight of Christians and lions, gruesomely thrilling. _Kings of arms tearing each other to pieces, just like their knightlier counterparts. What is not to enjoy of such a sight?_

“William, really,” he said, dissembling, “I was ambushed in the woods. What else, than robbers? I did not stop to interrogate them.”

A knowing look came over the canny Englishman, who muttered some ideas under his breath, too polite to voice certain suspicions in broad daylight. Montjoy directed a meaningful glance at the Lancaster herald, but John only showed him his empty hands with undisguised amusement.

“You were wearing your tabard?” William asked, striking out for the heart of the matter.  
“On a dark night in the woods?” Montjoy countered.  
“A lone rider on a fast horse?”  
“Sounds like an easy target.”  
“What makes a wounded man steal away before his physician arrives? Could it be his injuries are suspicious?”  
“I went to church,” said the herald, sincere with the truth, and William snorted noisily, as if he had been personally insulted, but couldn’t decide if to take offense or to laugh at it.  
“It was a Tuesday.”  
“I did not know praying was prohibited on Tuesday.”  

“My God, this is riveting,” John whispered to Richard, who graced them with his wide, languid smile. Exasperated, Montjoy waved at the conspiring duo in wordless complaint, but William was yet undeterred.

“Listen to yourself. You are a terrible liar but your careful truths are even more damning.”  
“Terrible or not, I am insulted that you would call me a liar at all, my friend.”  
“Answer me straight. Did you save that man?” William folded his arms, and Montjoy held his thousand mile glare for the span of one deep breath.  
“And if I did?” he said finally, releasing the air in a soft sigh. William grinned, fiercely predatory, sighting his prey cornered and turning.

“What man?” John interrupted, knitting his brow.  
“A man who had gone overboard in a raging storm,” said the English King of Arms. “Something very brave, and very dangerous.”  
“What?” repeated the Lancaster herald, incredulous, rounding on Montjoy, “What madness does he speak of?”

_One dark and stormy false night, a drowning man is saved but his savior is vanished. Who marked my face on a crowded deck in a raging storm? I know of only two people who could have told you that interesting story. Neither of whom can be compelled. But who was it?_

“From whom did you hear this madness?” Montjoy asked quietly, searching William’s face. The Englishman’s grin only grew wider and sharper.  
“From someone I would trust with my life. Why were you on deck?” William demanded.

_And exactly what story were you told?_

“Was I? Wrong door in a hallway full of doors. And chaos. You condemn me for careful truths yet here you are with yours. Who was it?”  
“You mean the sound of pouring rain and water coming in through the seams didn’t clue you in?”  
“William, there was no other sound _but_ the pouring rain, and water was coming in from _every_ seam, let alone the doors. Who told you?”

“Are you both mad?” John said harshly, stalking over to stake them both with his frustration. “ _You_ claim he jumped into the sea in a storm to save a drowning man, and _you_ say you just happened to be there? Whatever the real story is, it does not sound like it can or should be thrashed out standing around a procession halfway done and waiting on a praying king.”

 _Sounds to me like you want more time to interrogate both parties, my dear disgruntled teacher, because right now you don’t know who or what to believe. But as they say, any port in a storm._ Montjoy was relieved to acquiesce gracefully before his evil eye, and a short shared stare later, William shrugged as well, taking on renewed nonchalance like a man shrugging on a cloak.

“Let us speak officially then,” he said with studied indifference, “you don’t happen to know why Henry asked me to change the ship arrangements at the last moment?”

The French herald marshaled his most ingenuous expression and William Guyenne King of Arms beheld it for only a heartbeat before raising his hand to forestall the evasion.

“I’ll pry it out of you later, but for now I have some idea how you could repay him.”  
“Your suggestion is mystifying,” Montjoy said calmly, “What debt do I repay? Somehow I doubt your master actually told you to weigh this burden in.” His lips thinned with grim certainty as William smiled enigmatically in answer.    
“I would tell you, but we have been bullied from that pleasant conversation by this here glowering ogre.”  
“Very well,” he sighed with weary acceptance, holding his brow in one hand, “in lieu of that tiresome discussion, lay it on me. I can already tell I won’t be liking this.”  
“Henry wants to hold mass in Saint Paul’s, but for both sides, English and French.”

The sidelong look of the English King of Arms up the long procession tells Montjoy volumes about the king’s thoughts.

“He wants the Archbishop to attend?”  
“Precisely. It will mean a lot to the king if you could convince him so.”

_It would certainly say a lot. Far too much in fact._

The French herald raised his other hand to cover his face with both palms, a man beseeching some inner strength. When he emerged from behind his momentary shield, his eyes were flat and humorless.

“Have you read the list of the dead, _le Roi d’Armes d’Guienne_?”  
“Of course—”  
“Then you know His Excellence Guillaume Boisratier lost, amongst other kinsmen, two brothers at Agincourt.”

All four men found themselves staring at the clergyman some distance ahead, who deep in conversation with the Duke, did not notice the undue attention he had unwittingly provoked.

“And it looks like no one has told him yet,” William said darkly.

“I am not surprised,” Montjoy said. “They simply have to wait for him to ask me, and they will dodge the breaking storm.” _And they are clever to do so. I have had more than my fair share of storms I think. But what is one more shower. What is one more sorrow?_ He showed the English heralds a face cool as chiseled obsidian, set in black certainty. “This is the man who questioned the legitimacy of your king to his face.”

 _Does he thus bring back the dead?_  
_Does he thus regain his honor?  
_ _Who cares for the rites of an enemy?_

“I promise you he will curse Henry’s name before this day is done. How then, shall I convince him to attend mass at Saint Paul’s? Such an idea would be far more welcome.”

“Coincidentally, I have one such idea,” William said smoothly, to which Montjoy raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Constance.”

“My God,” the herald breathed out in horrified revelation, “you want me to wield his ambition against his sorrow?” When William held his silence with an infuriating look of innocence, Montjoy turned on the remaining two English heralds for support, one of whom shrugged pragmatically, the other trying for sympathy, yet not quite comprehending his dilemma.

 _I see now that I am the one at fault. I ask you to comprehend sorrow, on a day like today. It proves too much for any Englishman._ “What a grim lot of battlefield crows you all are,” he muttered darkly, as Henry emerged from the church, and the noise about them rose in unison. “Tell me Henry’s plans for Constance,” he said to William as they remounted, “and I may yet mention it to the poor man.” Twenty horses ahead, he watched as the Archbishop frowned at something the Duke of Orleans was saying. _But who will make one frown, or three, or twenty, in a thousand smiles?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	11. Triumph, and Death in the Afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every man has his weakness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke 23:34 (KJV): Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his clothing, and cast lots.

Surrounded by friends and heralds, his eyes were fixed on England’s king. Henry reached out to pluck a falling flower from the air, his deft fingers bright with precious gems. Closing his eyes, the king held the white blossom to his nose and inhaled its fresh scent with a rapturous smile. He raised the single stalk to the lady who had thrown it in a silent toast of princely recognition, and one hand on her forehead she swooned theatrically into the arms of her maid. Rather than discard it to the petal-strewn street, Henry kept it in his collar, where it swayed with his nonchalant rhythm; a pinpoint of snow more brilliant than any finely cut crystal.

His white horse walked on through the gentle floral shower, leaves swirling in its wake. The weight of a thousand adoring eyes on him, Henry bore the attention as joyfully as a sunflower enjoyed a fine spring mist, sweet and energizing. The gentle arch of the king’s shoulders as Henry relaxed into the ambling gait only made Montjoy more aware of the grinding irritation scraping away at him; the misshapen poison adder born of monstrously animated English faces on all sides that writhed in his guts, nerve-wracking, eroding his waning concentration. He could not but resent them their blissful celebration and he clenched his trembling hand so tightly on the reins that his mount shook her head and snorted unhappy. A conduit of her master’s mind, the bay mare shied anxiously from the antics of the crowd, from the constant surf of movement at the sides of her eyes. Common men and women giving themselves over to gap-toothed grins and raucous merriment; turning fools for the occasion, as entertaining to the distantly sneering aristocrats as the plush and glittering elect were to them, both sides briefly enjoying the view across the great social chasm while the frantic pulse of triumphal revelation bridged their echelons, softening the harsh resentment of the one and the stiff-necked superiority of the other.

“What was all that about?” John was asking him distractedly, calling him back from his moody reverie.   The Englishman was riding in the rightmost column, and the seething crowd waved and screamed and clutched at him constantly as they rode past, such that even his patient, placid horse was snapping its teeth in vindictive frustration. “Have you made an enemy of our dear Guyenne?” A man lunged out, laying both hands on his saddle, and unabashed, John put a firm boot to the interloper’s chest, thrusting him unceremoniously back into the crowd to strident cries of alarm and approval. “I know.” He turned to Montjoy with a look of supreme satisfaction, little deterred by the Frenchman’s paling horrified expression. “I bet you confounded his assistants in the field at battle’s end.”

“Perhaps you should keep your eyes on the crowd,” Montjoy said warily, but his attention was drawn to Guyenne’s back two rows ahead, gauging the man’s attention to the blatant gossiping happening behind him. _Like a king tom, his ears are cocked backwards._ “And you would lose that bet, since I have done nothing to offend him.”

“You seem certain,” John said with a roguish wink, “How much will you pay me when I ask him to weigh in?”  
“If he did not have enough heralds for the scale of the engagement, it was none of my doing. Are you two conspiring to rob me?”  
“I _knew_ it. Look at it this way, should he admit to taking offense, he surrenders his own credibility. That is enough to tilt the balance in your favor.”  
“My dearest John, must you pit us against each other like hounds for your entertainment?”  
“Ha, you two are no fighting hounds, you are fawns prancing about, boxing the air with your dainty hooves.”

The English herald took a great breath of the herb-scented air, looked around him and said warmly, “But it is most entertaining.” Disgruntled, Montjoy turned away from him resolutely. “He is a magpie,” he declared, raising his voice over the general roar. _Let him hear. Let him come at me._ “Pecking away at something he finds shiny.” William acknowledged the slight with a flash of his fingers over his shoulder in a gesture obscene enough to shock the line of heralds riding between them. Fitfully, they turned their heads and raised their eyebrows, curious, but they received only an impassive shrug in return, prompting his erstwhile mentor to laugh out loud. “You are tense like a drawn bow, snapping at your friends. Be at ease. Be restful. This day, England has never smelt so sweet, nor its people been so welcoming.”

“This is no day of rest,” Montjoy sighed wearily. “Crowned in his God-given glory, your King may be flush with welcome, but look how his captive audience comes. Why does my Lord Orleans seem so carefree? The Marshal looks to pick a fight, Bourbon is paler than new snow, and the Archbishop is at his most grim and unforgiving. How shall I be at ease?” _The last time I told a man his brothers were dead, I paid for every word in blood. At least this man of God may only lay his wrath upon my immortal soul._ The English herald pulled a clownish face at the distant clergyman, absurdly contorted, wringing a grudging snort of amusement from his friend. “ _C’est la vie_ ,” said John, brandishing his flag at the latest pedestrian to come too close to the procession. When the grasping man did not take his hint, John swept out his feet neatly with the end of the pole, leaving him cursing by the roadside. “ _La misère_ ,” Montjoy replied, observing the Englishman’s glee with some reservation, “Though you seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“And you are uncommonly ill at ease. No Archbishop, however mean, however wolfish, this unnerves the Valois King of Arms. Will you have me believe these chafing Lords have you unsettled? Hah, I will sooner accept the sun will not rise tomorrow. What is it, truly?”

“It is Henry,” Montjoy said, offering up his clean honesty to the man who would recognize anything less, but even then he balked at the whole sacrifice. He averted his sight to its immense world-tilting gravity, and hedged, “He is no common king.” Turning eyes smudged with fatigue and pain on his closest confident, he said, “He puts us to fire and sword. He ends the House of Valois.” Lightly scornful, John grinned sideways at him. “One lost battle and you’re prophesizing the end? I love Henry as much as the next Englishman, but this war has lasted three generations yet.”

_And yet you weren’t there. You know him as much as the next Englishman. Do I know him better? This is not my prophecy. This is his._

He left the thread of conversation to hang, paper-thin, and out in the bright sunlight it drew out his worries like ink stains climbing parchment layers, revealing them crude and shallow, formless yet spreading, purposeless. So he released them, to fall, as the petals in the air, as the blossoms in the street, and made a wistful smile at their lingering fragrance. “Kings and Lords rise and fall,” he said, “and your counsel is irreverent as ever.” John winked broadly, accepting it as a compliment, “But you did not say irrelevant.”

“Advise me, fearless tutor, what shall I tell the Archbishop?”  
“Whatever William has told you,” said the Englishman without hesitation. “It is his weight to bear, not yours. His choice. His decision.”  
“Of course.”

_But it is my tongue that speaks. What William wants is persuasion, not a common message carrier. What he needs is leverage, and he has his sights on it._

Through the confused carnival that thronged the alleyways and spilled from doors and windows and balconies by the street like an irresistible flood of sodden mice clawing their way out of a flooded burrow, Montjoy caught a glimpse of an immensely fat man in stained velvet, gnawing on a silver pear, and brightened up considerably as a thought occurred to him.

“Perhaps His Excellency would prefer to chew on a great, fat Englishman instead. Shall I ask for a favor?”  
“Surely, I am exempt,” John sniffed, “Not an ounce of fat about this person.”  
“Allow me to demonstrate.” Montjoy reached over and jabbed the portly herald firmly in the side, the butt of his flag sinking readily into the soft red folds and pale pink flesh beneath.  
“Oi!” the Englishman exclaimed, fending him off with his own pole.  
“Or perhaps I shall tell you a funny story instead,” Montjoy said quickly, ducking under the swipe that came in at eye level. “From one Thomas of Oxford.”

Sensing something amiss in the tone of his voice, John’s eyebrows huddled together on his forehead for protection, deeply furrowing the tanned skin. The herald continued with an Aesopian air, “An Englishman tries to jump across a broken bridge, but he falls and breaks an arm and a leg.”

“I did not know you were acquainted with Henry’s physician,” said the English herald desperately, but Montjoy continued breezily over the interjection. “He is carted in to see Thomas, and naturally the physician asks him why he would attempt such a foolhardy thing. Imagine my surprise to hear this Englishman claimed a certain French herald he knew had made jumping rivers seem like such a desirable thing.”

He mused aloud in a voice as acidly vinegary as forgotten wine, “This couldn’t possibly be the same Englishman who had ridiculed that same French herald for taking foolhardy chances? Ridiculed him and forced him to ford waist-deep in foul, murky streams and tramp through endless brambles reducing good clothes to worthless rags? Because that would make it a funny story indeed. What do you say, my dear Lancaster Herald?”  
“Couldn’t possibly be.”  
“Come now, my friend, you could have told me. I would have shown you how to jump in the right manner— so as not to break all your limbs.”  
“Don’t make me hit you—”  
“For example, your horse— could stand to lose some weight. Its rider— the same.”  
“I’m going up there with your man, this is worse than being chewed on by a bishop,” the Englishman muttered darkly, wielding his flag with some menace at the herald as he laughed and laughed.

The rare gust of musical laughter blown forwards drew William’s attention and as the English King of Arms turned back to glare suspiciously at the pair of them Montjoy realized they were passing beyond the constant noise of the crowd into a different kind of turmoil, struck through with the clarion belling of metal on metal and the beating of feet on sandy ground. Overhead, the rough-hewn stones of the outer gatehouse passed them by, pockmarked with murky machicolations and forbidding iron spikes guarding the narrow funnel of darkness through which they squeezed together two by two in rough breathless fashion, and then the procession was past the curtain walls and into the grainy heart of the castle, where their horses spread out in a great milling herd and their masters dusted off their finery with forceful, impatient blows. The trumpeters at the rear played a descending crescendo that ended with a triumphant blast, and bowed for their unappreciative audience as the gate came winching down behind the final guardsman and the crowd of townsmen trapped beyond could only dash their fervent jealousies against unfeeling walls.

“Now they will go drink, boast and fight for the rest of the day, and probably the night,” John remarked, following his gaze beyond the iron portcullis. “A grand plan,” murmured the herald, and his friend perked up at the response. “Later?” he asked, bushy eyebrows waggling. “Perhaps,” Montjoy stole a quick look at the Archbishop, who was closely surveying the activity around him before dismounting, his elegant silhouette predatory amidst the cheerful ovine bloat of fur cloaks and padded shoulders that the English nobles dared to wear without a sense of shame.

“I take it you won’t eat at Henry’s table?”  
“I’ll sooner sleep than eat,” Montjoy said tiredly, and John did not protest but eyed him worried.  
“But will you drink with us?”  
“Yes, later,” he said, catching John’s eye.  
“At the Red Lion then.”  
“Yes, if you don’t pass out from your feast.”  
“If you aren’t passed out from your fever,” the Englishman countered in a flash, but Montjoy was already sliding from his saddle.

He dismounted roughly and was surprised to find a boy waiting by to take his flag and his horse. Southampton castle had been readying for the king’s arrival even before Henry had been delayed by the storm, and that morning they were all manner of surprising efficiency. Already, Henry and his brothers had been whisked within the great double doors by a grinning castellan, followed intently by a great host of courtiers too anxious to be left behind. By the time the herald had caught his breath the Archbishop was beckoning impatiently to him, his foul mood etched into the razor lines of his mouth.

He hurried across the raised dust of the courtyard, succumbing to a violent bout of coughing just as he reached the ambassador’s side. Clamping his lips together against the itching in his throat, he bowed, not trusting himself to speak. The clergyman spared him a single reproving glare, distracted by the imminent approach of the Duke of Orleans. He whispered into his ear something the young Lord made no attempt to pay attention to, giving up moments later, exasperated. “Go with him,” William commanded in clipped French, freezing an approaching Englishman with a venomous warning glare, “Ensure he is treated befitting his rank.” Charles d’Orleans, pale features still set in the soft potentials of youth, seemed vaguely lost to the herald, regarding all around him with the most generic of interests, his gaze alighting here and there as tenuous and fleeting as the passage of a monarch butterfly. When his wide eyes fell on Montjoy he nodded briefly in recognition, and the herald bowed low in lieu of a greeting.

“ _Adieu, votre Excellence, adieu,_ ” Charles said with long, musical syllables, but as he regarded the courtyard with its sturdy curtain walls, and the bustling doorway to the keep’s dark interior, he seemed to think twice, adding more starkly in English, “I hope to see you again.”

The Duke gestured grandly for the waiting Englishman to lead the way, and Montjoy trailed a step behind him. From within the torchlit maw of the keep, he glanced back at the ambassador’s still form and saw a fleeting shark of disgust chase the tail of unhappiness across his gaunt features. They passed through grim corridors of unpolished stone and dim, thick tapestries in deep cavernous silence. Orleans looked around the suite of rooms offered to him with a benign air of understanding and pronounced them, “ _Il suffit_ ,” dismissing the herald with an elegant wave of his hand. Surreptitiously, Montjoy inspected the furnishings himself, but it proved to be accommodation worthy of a visiting prince. The series of large rooms was comfortably warmed by a roaring fire; the walls were covered, the floors furred and the venerable faces of the castle’s ancestors armed with long leggy steeds and lovingly embellished jewels stared out harshly from the faded gilding that dominated every available surface. The Duke had ensconced himself in a seat at the fire by the time the herald quietly took his leave. On his way out, Montjoy discreetly chatted with the servants who had appeared with water and wine, and learning their names, bribed them in coin, just in case.

He roamed the adjoining hallways unopposed, patiently discovering the rooms of the remaining noble captives. None shared the Duke’s calm indifference, and one by one they laid their worries on him, their fresh messages and their replies to those he carried, demanding obedience and reassurance in the same breath. To each one he promised only what he had to offer, a word for Henry’s ear, or for Charles, or a letter passed to the right hands. His simple word was pale comfort to the sweating anxious, but those who were veteran soldiers acknowledged his efforts with stiff-backed and stoic gratitude, and they were all glad for a moment of his company. With meticulous care, he marked which asked for news of Bernard, and which for news of Burgundy. The sun had streamed inexorably past its apex into pleasant mid-afternoon before he was free of the confines of the keep, and the Archbishop was long since retired to his private lodgings beyond the castle walls. The thought of tedious name-calling with the zealous gate guards gave him cause to be weary, let alone breaking bad news to the gaunt ambassador, and he paused by the great doors to close his eyes. For several short breaths, he could be still. For a brief moment, restful. As he emerged blinking, half-blinded into the brilliant sunlit courtyard, he heard his name being called with irresistible authority.

“Montjoy, come here,” Henry ordered from across the now-empty distance, and the herald’s heart sank as he rapidly took in the scene emerging through the searing sun blindness. Three men knelt before England’s king, and their heads were bowed not in respect but in shame; their hands were tied behind his back and their clothing was dirty with ill-use. Two were dressed like men-at-arms, in worn leather and stained wool, but the third at the end of the line wore an expensive doublet, creased in all the right places where he would have had expensive knightly armor strapped over it. A gawking crowd had gathered behind Henry; minor English courtiers the herald could put a name but no personality to, and knights he had seen on the battlefield hewing down their captives with barely a second’s shiver. The king’s inner circle was conspicuous with their absence, and no man dared to stand too close, opening up a space all around Henry, a solitude scored by the razor edge of his biding anger.

The kneeling nobleman turned his head as Henry spoke, glancing over the approaching herald. Montjoy saw his face, rigid with fear and hatred, impossibly young, and he knew him then; saw the young Lord in pristine, aching clarity, the thoughts that troubled him and the humiliation that ignited his proud spirit, burning hot and reckless. _Burning so dangerous._ He felt the static of the oncoming storm crackle down his spine. _Oh God, on this day of triumph, please let Henry be generous. Please let him be forgiving._ He prayed and quickened his pace, worry lending forceful impetus to his leaden limbs. Somewhere Henry had divested himself of his swirling cloak of crimson, but he still wore the golden crown upon his brow and now it framed a fierce sovereign anger, his lips pressed thin, his eyes cold with contempt. Banished the soft bemused contentment of the morning, they were hard gemstone, all sharp and glittering edges, heavy with judgment like that of light as it is strained through the cut facets of a dense sapphire. The midday sun highlighted every fair aspect of his face, a stony masterpiece to rival Caesar’s portrait, struck through with veins of anger that bided deeply in the potent lines that frayed first, those around the eyes and mouth, and at the forehead just below the crown. And there in his collar, a soft wilting white flower. Henry gestured at the young man kneeling before him and asked, “Who is this man?”

_Barry of ten, argent and sable. And his father’s signet ring, recovered from an arrow stuck corpse._

“Antoine, Count of Vaudémont, your Majesty.” Montjoy answered without hesitation.  
“Was that name not on the roll?”  
“This is his son,” Montjoy explained, “by the death of his father Jean on the battlefield, so inheriting the title of Count. And these, his sworn guard.”  
“Tell me, King of Arms. What is the punishment in France for seeking escape after having given one’s gauntlet in promise?” The king’s severity was painfully cold, like pressing a hand against a wall of ice.  
“Your majesty—” said the herald, hesitant.  
“Here in England we do not look kindly upon cowards and liars.”

Montjoy held his gaze for a heartbeat, reading therein Henry’s contempt for the men before him, and so pleaded, “This man is neither.” As if to dispute his own case, the Count licked his lips, then spat vehemently at the feet of the fair-haired man standing just behind Henry. “This English peasant,” Antoine snarled in broken, accented English, “This _common_ archer, has no right to take me captive.” He switched harshly to French as he directed his outrage at Henry. “I have offended no code of chivalry. I did not try to escape. I tried to _kill him._ ”

The Englishman in question eyed his prisoner with casual disregard, his easy shrug shedding the insults from his broad shoulders like so much gentle drizzle unheeded. “He offered his glove readily enough, my liege,” he said. Enraged, the Frenchman rose up from his knees, howling in his native tongue, “You shot down my father, bastard archer! Coward bowman, false captor and falser knight!” Montjoy laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and the Count subsided in fierce heaving breaths. Gloomily, the herald observed Henry’s expression blacken still further at the exchange, coal dark and dispassionate. If the English knight, unlike his King, did not understand the exact wording of the outburst, its fevered hatred, its malevolence was abundantly clear to all. Distant shock rippled through the silent spectators, more than one wincing as the last word died away. All eyes were on the king, wary and watchful, a breathless vigil held in a snow-capped gorge, as if a single sound would bury them all in a numb white grave.

_Henry will not soon forgive an insult to his archers, how sorely he values his honor. His legitimacy. My Lord, how efficiently you throw away your life. And for what?_

Henry gestured for the accused to step forward, and the Englishman came to stand before his three captives. Entirely serene and infinitely patient, he waited for Henry to make his point. “Robert, are these three men your prisoners by all the laws of chivalry?” Montjoy heard something in the king’s voice that made him nervous, like an old sailor sensing the changing wind before the sails could begin to flutter in distress, and gripped his countryman’s shoulder urgently, silencing his outburst. “They are, my liege,” said Robert, a man reciting a line, playing his part without empathy.

“In rightful captivity, these men attacked you, did they not?” Henry’s intention moved across the herald’s mind, implacable as a glacier’s advance, vast and unstoppable, the king’s voice its smooth icy face. He could think of nothing to say that would stay its inexorable progress, and the helplessness of it cut into him with every spoken word, bleeding him by infinitesimal fractions. _Haven’t you Englishmen had enough of our blood?_ “They did, my liege,” said Robert. Henry motioned to the squire who held his sword. As the boy brought it forward, England’s king drew it smoothly from the scabbard and offered it to the knight hilt first. “Then you have my permission to answer this insult to your honor,” Henry said, meeting Montjoy’s beseeching gaze with blue eyes like black ice, and his look had no give in it.

“The sentence in England, as it is in France, is death,” Henry pronounced. _We drown in it._

“Your majesty—” Before the herald could finish, the tall somber knight had stepped forward, and to the general satisfaction of the bystanders, plunged Henry’s sword into the first man, the tip entering at the soft edge where neck met torso, slicing deep into the cavity of his body with a slick, nauseating sound and killing him before he could even open his mouth to scream. _Put us to fire and sword._ Montjoy found he could not avert his eyes, though his mouth tasted sickeningly of ashes and his mind recoiled in horror from the sight. As the knight drew out the bloodied blade, the corpse toppled forward forlornly to the ground.

“Your majesty, this—” Montjoy began, but all his eloquence faded in the brilliant steel glare of the king’s regard. _Ending us for your honor._ The second man began to curse, a fierce stream of spitting, guttural vehemence in English-spattered French so his executioner would understand, and to his credit he looked the Englishman right in the eye as the sword was raised for him, the blood of his comrade pooling at its tip to drip onto his cheek. In the aching silence of the pause they all stared wide-eyed at the knight who killed without emotion, his demeanor lending the herald to finally understand how the best English archers could loose seven shafts in half that number of heartbeats, and kill as many men. Montjoy looked again to Henry, for salvation, but the king had the searing glint of approval in his eye, and the herald could not think of anything to say in time. _Please._

The sword fell a second time, in the same soft spot, through the same scarlet arc, and this time the Frenchman screamed as he died, a bone-piercing howl that echoed off the curtain walls and returned high-pitched ghosts of itself to haunt the twitching corpse with fell re-animation. Placid as a shepherd, Robert placed one foot on the dead man and drew out the blade from its dense wet embrace. He stepped up to the kneeling Count, but as he raised his sword for the third time Montjoy finally and belatedly acted, moving swiftly between executioner and condemned so that the weapon came to rest against his chest, denting inwards one curling golden petal with its stained tip. A flash of surprise passed across the knight’s solemn expression, and the tip wavered, considering, then settled in its place.

_If Henry shall not relent, then you must. Or I will. Something must give. One way or another. We will weigh a man’s life in words._

“Sir Knight, I beg you, reconsider. Here is a Count of France. He is your prisoner. It does not lie with honor to kill him thus.” Scorning Montjoy’s quiet begging with his harsh snarl, the Count struggled against his bonds and cried out in French, “Do not stand between us, Herald! Let him murder me as he did my father. These Englishmen are as devoid of honor as are dogs!” Inwardly the herald grimaced, but he faced the English archer-knight unblinking, and Robert granted him a level consideration beneath hooded eyes.

“Please. Forgive his trespasses,” he sighed, “He is fifteen. He watched his father die. His youth and his grief are a potent drug.”

“What did he say?” The Englishman spoke with a deep, amused voice, his round country drawl clearly marking him as one of Henry’s newborn knights, elevated from the rushes in the mud of Agincourt, and in the glory of Agincourt he was no less a splinter of Henry’s honor, no less a bloodied hand of the king. When Montjoy hesitated to reply, the knight chuckled humorlessly. “He insults me to my face, and does not behave as a noble prisoner should. Why should I spare him?”  
“He is young, and proud, and rash. If his blood runs hotly with foolish nerve, it is because he mourns as deeply.” His gaze slipped past the Englishman to alight on Henry, as he said, “We were all young and foolish once, and make mistakes.” There was no reaction from the king. Not a single blink did he relent, not a flicker of emotion or exhaled breath. The herald stared into the yawning void of his final judgment, and shuddered.

_You have a ways to go yet._

“Youth is no excuse,” Robert said evenly, “for such a grand Lord of France. He was raised in armor and weaned on horseback. He has had far more education on honor than I, _common_ as I am.”

 “Valois Herald,” said Vaudémont, commanding despite his bent back, despite his young age, “Let him come. I am not afraid to die.” At Robert’s inquisitive gesture, the herald translated for the Count, and the Englishman nodded once, briskly.

"Move out of the way.”  
“Forgive him,” Montjoy begged. “He knows not what he is doing.”  
“I think he knows exactly.”    
“Please, forgive him. A knight’s charge is honor, but it is also mercy. It is also generosity. Ransom him instead. A count’s ransom is no mean thing.”  
“I’m told a knight’s honor is priceless.”

_God does not move you, and gold does not touch you. But I have more one thing of any value._

“Here are two dead, to restore your honor, Sir Knight. Show mercy, I beg you.” The pressure at the sword’s tip abated imperceptibly as the knight considered his words, and Montjoy spoke with rough sincerity, “If two is not enough, how much more blood will be? Take it from me.”

“ _Herald_ ,” said the Count, anguished.

“Take it from me,” Montjoy repeated, pressing forward onto the blade.

“ _Montjoy_ ,” said Henry suddenly, in warning.

Herald and knight ignore England’s king, ignore everything, because this single moment is all enveloping, and everlasting. The tip of the sword passes through the embroidery to caress bare skin. Another ounce of pressure and the tenuous balance breaks. Another heartbeat and the skin breaks. One stares resolute, he is judging. One stares thoughtful, seeing through to something.

 _It’s not easy to be a knight, is it? For me this choice is black and white. But for you?_  
_Your honor was never in question. Now we test the weft of your spirit._  
_With my blood I test it. With my heart I test it.  
_ _How much pale honor is any man’s life worth?_

Montjoy pressed forward, and with a final glance from the herald to the broken bodies sprawled in the dust, the knight relented, pulling back his hand at the last moment. The edge leaves the barest tear in Montjoy’s tabard as it exits, through the center of a golden lily, above the heart. Solemnly, Robert lowered the sword down the front of the herald’s chest. The tip traced a line of weeping crimson that bisected the garment in two, making two uneven halves of the Valois arms, as if the lily above the heart bled in fine scarlet thread. A collective breath from the gathered stirred the viscous air, and the herald knew it was from disappointment that the bloodthirsty English nobles sighed. “Thank you,” he said, with his own aching exhalation. “Thank you.” Robert turned to Henry, and almost imperceptibly, the king nodded, a queer expression coming over him, something torn in conflict as his gaze swept from the kneeling man to the man standing protectively before him.

“Is this your master?” Robert asked, turning the sword over in his hand as it dripped steadily onto the sand. “No,” said the herald, confused. Was he not standing in a tabard of the House of Valois? “By his coat of arms, I know him.” The Englishman peered at him, plainly curious. “Then what is he, that you should risk your life for his?”

“A young man,” said Montjoy softly, “about to be sacrificed onto the altar of honor.” It was clear from Robert’s expression the archer knight did not understand him. “You are a madman,” Robert said with a toothy grin. “No,” said the herald, shaking his head. _I am a gambler. I am a fool._ “But you are a good man.” His eyes challenged the knight to refute him, and Robert turned away instead, returning the sword to the waiting squire.

“Tell him you have saved his life.” 

Montjoy dropped to one knee to whisper in the young Count’s ear. “My Lord,” he sighed, “Throw not your life away. Your father had just the one son. I do not think he would want this.” The youth sneered at him, but it was weak and without rancor. “You are too quick to give this peasant acknowledgement, Herald,” he said, and his voice trembled with emotion, “Does he have arms _semé-de-lys_ , that you should beg and fawn to him?” The herald shrugged, “And what does he have, that you should surrender your life to him?” Silent and staring, the Count made no reply as he was dragged to his feet and marched away by solemn guardsmen.

Montjoy caught Robert’s sleeve as he made to follow his captive. “Sir Robert,” he said, “Convey to me your device. I confess I do not know it.” The Englishman flashed a quick foxlike smile, shattering his somber mask. “I haven’t given it much thought. Perhaps you could offer some assistance. Apparently, I require one for the knighting ceremony.” That strange arch smile widened as the herald, dumbstruck, inclined his head in agreement, and disappeared instantly as the man stalked off without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	12. Sword Blades—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Montjoy defends himself—

More guardsmen came to carry away the two remaining bodies, and behind their backs a young boy materialized with a scraggly birch broom. He scratched away at the vivid splashes in the sand, swirling bloody puddles into gritty mud. In a few hours, under a few ignorant footsteps, nothing of the execution would remain but an unexplained pale tinge of red, to be washed away with the next rain.

“Reckless,” said Henry, “Foolish.”  
“Your majesty,” said the herald, suffused with tired defiance.   
“For the future I forbid you from bullying my knights out of their duty.”

“Bully?” Montjoy said, raising an eyebrow. “Duty?” He looked up into the clear blue sky and smiled sadly, not waiting for the king’s response. “As you say, your majesty.” he sighed. “By your leave,” he said, with a short bow, and did not meet Henry’s eyes as he backed away. He crossed the courtyard expanse with bated breath, skin crawling beneath the attention of many English eyes. When he achieved the relative safety of the inner gateway, he released a brief sigh. There was nothing to be done now but report to the Archbishop, unaccountably late, with blood down the front of his tabard and another gut-churning tale to relate.

As he passed through the barbican, someone took hold of his arm from behind, shocking a startled curse from his lips. “Jumpy today, are we, Herald?” came a sardonic voice over his shoulder, lazy with amusement at his expense. “Sir John of Clarence,” Montjoy said with the slightest reproving frown, recognizing the slim knight he had seen fighting as a lion on the field, taking on all comers regardless of their size. He had no small respect for the young man as a soldier, but his reputation for mischief preceded him, and the herald regarded him warily. “Aren’t you heralds all about titles and heritage? I believe you forgot the ‘bastard’ part,” the youth replied lightly, his candor scandalizing, “but I thank you for the thought all the same, Montjoy King of Arms.” The resemblance to the Duke was a fine one, he thought, all dark-eyed haughtiness and slim sharp edges, but in the son also a scathing sense of humor, and a devil may care attitude born equally of his untitled birth and his father’s patronage.

“Nasty business that,” said Clarence lightly, gesturing behind them. “I thought you handled it well. If a little dramatic.” With a mocking grin, he eyed the swiftly drying rusty stain and pulled a face theatrical with disgust. It left the herald unaccountably cold. “These knights take themselves far too seriously.”  
“Seigneur,” Montjoy said, his disapproval plain, “I am late to meet the ambassador.”   
“Regrettably I must detain you further,” replied the young knight without the slightest pang of guilt, “My father would have a word with you.”

The pronouncement was distinctly out of place, sending shivers of premonition up his spine. He could not think of any reason for the summons. “Can this wait?” he asked, forlorn, but the Englishman only shrugged and shook his head. He found himself being steered back into the castle with a firm hand that brooked no argument. They skirted the newly emptied courtyard, hugging hard by the curtain walls, the cloth overhead turning to grim stone and warm inviting sunlight to cold naked flame, servants with their heads turning whispering in their wake and eyes of oil and pigment staring down at their passage. He was glad the Englishman had not noticed, or had chosen not to comment on his stiffly limping pace, and the whiteness in his hands and face.  

“What does the Duke require that necessitates such haste?” The youth shrugged again, showing in his manner irritation that Montjoy thought arose from dissatisfaction with his role in the whole affair.  “Prepare yourself, herald. I believe you are a brave man, but there is, I think, a storm brewing.” _That is nothing new. I appear to live in a world of storm. Of endless rain. If not water, then blood. If not blood, then fire. Which is this?_ One look at his fatalistic expression was enough to make Clarence laugh out loud. “I like a man who beholds his doom with such tired resignation. Awe-inspiring. If you survive I shall buy you a drink yet.” The Englishman stopped before a subdued set of double doors, ornate enough to suggest a large room beyond, and marked by the tendrils of a flowering wood.

“We are here. Are you ready?” he asked, pausing with his fist raised above the door.  
“Does it matter?” The knight gave him a pitying smile, and knocked once, then three times. A strong, almost recognizable voice bid them enter impatiently. “If you do not,” John whispered as he pushed on the door, “I’ll pour it on your grave.” It swung open easily to the touch, revealing an interior shrouded with deep shadow, lit only by a single banked fireplace.

The sight froze his blood. Three Plantagenet brothers seated about the center of the chamber, on dark rounded thrones like some ancient pagan tribunal. The room’s only ornamentation was the full skin of a gigantic bear from door to fireplace, its outstretched fangs bared towards him. It was clear they had been deep in conversation, the youngest there leaning forward, one hand outstretched to elucidate his point, the eldest sitting back in his chair with an expression of disbelief, his arms firmly folded. Standing behind them, completing the eerie tableau, their kinsmen Exeter and Westmorland, faces in shadow. At once lost for words, he was preempted by the Duke of Clarence who rose from his seat in a rustling of dark silks, and strode forward to peer curiously into his face. He walked all around the herald once, eyeing him like a prospective collector classifying an antique, then turning with a small bemused smile, said to his silent, expectant audience, “This is the man?”

A series of serious nods and severe frowns was answered by a curt laugh from the slim, dapper lord, with which he collapsed back into his seat. “A fine jest, my brothers, but really, a waste of my time.” Immediately, Gloucester said heatedly, “We are being perfectly serious, Thomas. Which of us understood when it was Scrope? And look where that went.” A sharp reply snapped back, revealing the elder brother’s impatience with the whole proceedings. “Really, perfectly serious?” In the bickering, Montjoy glanced over to the young knight at his shoulder, as if to say, _this storm_? Clarence’s natural son shrugged lazily, but the herald noticed he had one hand on the hilt of his sword, fingers tensed. “A French herald? _This_ French herald?” The Duke of Exeter rumbled a grim, “Hard to believe as it is, it does not make it impossible. We have seen compelling evidence.”

The second son of Henry Bolingbroke, to whom the lords had turned to with their suspicions, waved his hand negligently in the air, then settled it on his brow with distaste. “Dear God, why bother me with a minor herald? Make him disappear if you so wish. Do it now, to his face, like true English Lords.” As they turned in unison to stare at him, Montjoy straightened his back and leveled his gaze with all the fearful calmness of a shepherd staring down the throat of hungry wolves. “Brother,” said Bedford evenly, “This is no minor herald but Charles’s own, who carried ultimatums of both ransom and surrender at Agincourt. They will ask for him by name.” Montjoy could tell that the clarification had failed to impress Clarence, who appeared to ignore his brother, focusing his attentions on the distant fireplace instead.

_Outside Henry is executing Frenchmen in cold blood. Inside his brothers are agonizing over the cost of one more body. Pray cast your eyes outside, my Lords. Christ, what infinite jest._

“Tell me, king’s herald,” Thomas said suddenly, “why these good lords accuse you?”  
“My Lord of Clarence, if at any time I have not acted in good faith, I confess I do not know it.”

A grimly rational voice, Bedford spoke. “Only a herald, yes, but our good king seeks his private counsel, time and again.” Clarence was quick to retaliate, his voice rising with every statement. “Perhaps he offers good counsel, my brother? Perhaps the king needs more counsel than the same tedious English voices? Do you think Henry incapable of discerning friend and foe?” The Duke’s ire lashed out at his kinsmen, who turned their faces away, some blank, some grey with anger. “Now that I have seen him, I think you all made fools. This man is nothing special, nothing dangerous. Let Henry have him.” Rising from his chair, Clarence swept past the herald, drawing up his son in his wake. “You’ve heard what I have to say. I spend no more time on this. Here he is, decide what you will.” He slammed the door as he left, leaving the herald dry-mouthed with anticipation as the remainder of the English Lords refocused their attentions on him. He found himself sorry to see the last questionably friendly face in the room depart with a wry, sympathetic grin.

“Perhaps Thomas—” began Bedford, but his younger brother cut him off with an angry cry. “God damn his pride. Why should he care about Henry’s safety? God knows he—” Bedford shot him a warning look, charged enough to stifle his brother’s angry rant, and the two Englishmen subsided into an uneasy, brooding silence. Humphrey watched his brother, and his brother watched the herald. In return, Montjoy cast his eyes down and eyed the snarling fangs of the bear, locked into an eternal gaping grimace. _You and I both, bear._ Here was a strange and powerful shadow court that would not relent before some form of judgment had been passed. Long moments of indecision crawled by, the herald measuring time as it drew out interminably by the regular beats of his heart, one, three, five, then restless with the waiting, the Duke of Exeter rounded the arc of chairs decisively. His naked sword appeared in his hand as he crossed the haunch of the bear rug.

_Dear God, do these Englishmen know nothing else but to wave their weapons around?_

Montjoy stood his ground and considered the man approaching as a battering ram, straight and purposeful. Henry Bolingbroke’s youngest half-brother was broader and darker than his regal kin, but his blunt forthright manner was his family heritage as much as his stiff warlike bearing. Here was Henry’s unyielding bludgeon, and the faithful shield at his back. Here was a man who had borne uncovered armor and words of war into Charles’ court, teeth bared in a predatory smile, menacing the king and scorning the Dauphin. A memory of twisting steel, of sick burning agony, haunted the herald. It set his teeth on edge and his shoulder stinging. Exeter speared his weapon point down into the preserved and contorted head of the bear, the slick sound of which causing the gathered Plantagenet lords to wince, and heedless of the mutilation, growled, “Perhaps we have you wrong, Valois herald, but I like to take precaution and I have a mind to. Speak now your defense. Tell me why you should leave this room alive.”

_Yet another Englishman to test at sword’s edge. I already have the measure of this one. I already know the taste of his blade. Ruthless. Merciless._

Montjoy raised his head and met Thomas Beaufort’s eye with challenge. He had seen already one drawn sword today, and now regarded this new threat from some jaded tiring corner of his mind. “Are you a murderer, my Lord of Exeter?” he asked plainly. Both Lancaster brothers sat back in their chairs, content for the moment to witness their Uncle’s judgment; the youngest with his jaw set like a brawler bracing for a fight, the elder still as a quiet pond, and as unreadable. To the herald’s great relief Exeter considered his question seriously, much like a man concerned with justice and the rightness of things. “I am a vassal defending his king,” said the bearded Englishman, as if it were the most apparent thing in the world.

“And I am a herald of the house of Valois,” he said, one hand on his tabard with the quiet reverence of a man before St Peter’s gates. “I am no danger to your king. I never asked for his attention.”  
“Asked for or not, you have captured it.”  
“For that I forfeit my life? It is no offense of mine.”  
“So what? Men have died for far less.” Exeter huffed loudly his waning patience, one gloved hand clenched around the hilt of his standing sword.

“I speak for my master, read blazons and ride between thrones. Nothing more. Here I am, weak and empty-handed,” Montjoy said simply, spreading his arms. “I swear I am no spy or magician. I swear I am no assassin.” The Duke glared at him, a man offered pig swill, and recoiling in disgust at the sight of it. “What is your word next to Henry’s life?” he demanded. The herald answered the stare, the indignation and the accusation, with his cold, clear anger. Bared like fine steel, it shed silver light from its hard edge, bared like hound’s teeth, bone-white and blood-tinged.

_Once more into the raging storm. Once more with feeling. Once more with hubris._

“What is my word worth at all?” he retaliated, voice raised and raging. “Will it be worth more with your blade at my throat? Will you believe me when I bleed red? Torture me if you think it brings you greater truth.” He pulled back his sleeves and offered them his wrists, the bandages freshly wrapped in the ship’s hold just acquiring their weeping scarlet stains. “I am a _herald_ , as my father before me. Has ten years before the throne of France earned me no worth?” _You lords of war. You Plantagenets who make the world in your image. You understand nothing of me._ As much as there was rage, searing him black and crumbling, there was a lingering ghostly pain, haunting without respite.

“Ten years since your father died,” said the Duke ponderously as he drew out the sword from the head of the beast with slow deliberation, and brought it to bear easily in one hand. “Ten years since your brother killed. You name me murderer? It is in _your_ family.” Montjoy felt his skin burn hot and cold, flashing open avenues of rage and grief he thought long since closed. He said nothing, and Exeter read his frozen demeanor with ease. “Your brother was trained as a priest, was he not?” he said, his words lashing out like a whip, drawing blood so easily. “Yet he managed to put his knife into the throats of three, or was it four, priests that day. Admirable, and— revealing. What was he, twelve?”

_Oh, William, my friend, look at how you have betrayed me so unwitting. You told him. Without warning, without reason, you return all of my dark days. It hurts so familiar._

Amber firelight played over bare steel as Exeter raised his sword, rendering it liquid, and living. Had he made up his mind? Hollowed and angry, the herald looked into the heavy lined features of the old warrior. “Am I wrong to find his brother dangerous?”

“I am not my brother,” Montjoy whispered, barely audible, and his tension snapped, crisp and clean, into bitter self-immolating hatred. _You know nothing of me._

“I would not make my King a laughing stock,” he said with such wintry vehemence the weapon wavered, flashing silver as it did. “I do not surrender my duty so simply.” He stepped forward, empty-handed, to stand before the sword, and the Duke laid it none too gently on his tabard, echoing unknowing the stranger knight with his sword so bloodstained. But Exeter had no shock of surprise, no iota of uncertainty, only the grim resolve to dirty his hands for his King.

“You may have won at Agincourt, but that does not give you Englishmen the right to mock my liege.” The herald spoke from his seething fury, every word scorching with conviction as final as if his master had commanded it, but it was no imperial ire, it was matter all formed of thorny agony, common and base. “You think he would put a knife in my hand? _My God_ , what slight regard for a King of France, what insulting scornful contempt. He would never ask. And I would sooner take that knife to my own throat.”

He pressed forward, the second time that day, onto the tip of the blade. Into the hands of another Englishman. This one drew the herald’s blood with his clean unrelenting steel, and languidly the golden lily absorbed it, drop by drop, changing shade. A pinprick of pain subsumed in a world of unanswered hurt.

“Put now your sword in my heart, my Lord of Exeter, if you think a single word of what I have said is false. I will give my life freely to answer this insult to my King.”

When for long moments the Duke did not move, only considered his outburst with level, searching eyes, Montjoy continued in a quieter tone of voice. “All my brother did, he did for honor,” he said with soft finality. “That should be his legacy. That should be the measure of my family.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	13. —Knife Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> —body and soul.

“I am surprised,” said John of Clarence, ambushing Montjoy around the corner of the dim stone hallway with cheerful abandon. This time, the herald had anticipated his accoster, and the man’s sudden appearance did not give him a moment’s pause. Wordless with lingering anger, Montjoy brushed past him. Undaunted, Clarence followed upon his footsteps, eyeing him with languid interest. “And yet I am not surprised,” John said, one hand on his chin in a thoughtful posture. “You are a man of some means, Herald. How did you manage such a feat?”

_The Duke had slackened his arm, and the sword had fallen away, bloodied at the very tip._

“Why do you follow me, Sir Knight?” asked the herald wearily. All his agony, his energizing rage was transmuting into black fatigue, the poisonous reaction consuming him whole, leaving him hollow. He only had to glance at Clarence to feel the Englishman’s morbid curiosity begin to overwhelm him. “Have you another storm for me? Another reckoning?” With a wide, mischievous grin, the young man stopped him before they could emerge into the courtyard. “How did you do it?” he asked again, a fervent petition. Perhaps Clarence had known all along his father’s intention, his damning lack of interest, if so, the son showed nothing but casual disregard for the stay of execution and a carefree arrogance that discounted his own part in the matter.

_Exeter breathed out a great sigh, and nodded once, dismissing him without another word. An uncommon benediction from a vengeful God and one the herald received with uncommon relief. Bedford and Gloucester rose from their chairs, questioning and moody. He had not stayed for their complaints. He had not found their dark looks reassuring._

“I told the Duke to put his sword into my heart,” said the herald darkly, causing the young knight to laugh aloud. He was delighted to consider the scene, it sparkled in his eyes, replayed in some theatric fashion. “Astounding,” said Clarence, “Tonight I shall buy you that drink, Herald, else I shall be a filthy liar.” Montjoy demurred his declaration with a tired nod, wanting only to pass by his restraining arm, and out into the swiftly waning sunlight. Another moment of delay, and the Archbishop would retire, leaving his worries to fester yet another day. If the ambassador had heard anything of Agincourt, anything at all, it would be suppurating by now, eating away at him. And Montjoy had no good news to salvage the pain. Alert to his anxiety, Clarence tightened his grip on the herald, and spoke in an undertone. “I am compelled to give you a warning, Montjoy,” he said, his previous merriment neatly kept away. “Though the consensus of the lords is in your favor, there are some who will not bide quietly by.”

“Who? You English knights?” Montjoy asked, perplexed and uneasy in light of the youth’s new conspiratorial manner. “Why should any of you take offense to me? I know your names and blazons and little else.” His thoughts flew suddenly to Henry’s new-made knights, the scores of them, the archers and pikers and men-at-arms simultaneously carried aloft in a violent fountain of blood and death, and like the tall executioner that afternoon, lacking in horse, armor and device. The accoutrements of gentility. And yet they were armed. Well-armed, on Henry’s coin, and he knew not their names or any emblem. He knew nothing about them except that struggling their way into the upper echelons with the desperation of the downtrodden, they would upset the incumbents and encounter their withering scorn, souring feelings all up and down the chivalric ranks.

“Most of you will not recognize my name or face.”

John gave a sleek, sharp smile. “Do you think only the great Lords have noticed? Do you think the Dukes have no strong right hands they confide in? The King speaks to you in private. Happen too often to any man and all of us watching are forced to take sides.” Montjoy raised an eyebrow, the young man’s directness as constantly surprising as watching someone barge straight through the walls of a hedge maze to the center. “Have I done something to merit your patronage?” he asked, unable to refute the damning logic, and received a hearty slap on the back that made him wince, the dark-haired knight lighting up with amusement. “I don’t know you personally, King of Arms, but I’ll trust Henry of Monmouth any day. The Lords may scheme and maneuver, but us lowly soldiers work on gut instinct.”

_No firstborn son of Thomas of Lancaster is a lowly soldier, natural or not._

“Besides, a man who takes two English swords to the heart and comes out alive is either a cat with nine lives, or a man worth a second glance.”

Montjoy took a long look askance at the English knight who professed his support so glibly, leaning in all semblance of casual comfort against a rough stone column, his cutting gaze belying the nonchalance. Richly dressed for the evening celebration, the Bastard of Clarence had luxurious white-tipped fur lining his collar, cloak and cuffs, delineating his noble status in the strongest of statements. Though he named himself soldier, Montjoy knew the young man played in highest circles, at his father’s side and as his confidant, with only his birthright preventing him from openly taking part in the great game. His father’s arms were prominently displayed on the front of his doublet, no doubt to infuriate his opponents, and his father’s snide smile decorated the features that were so readily identifiable. A grimy, well-worn hilt jutted from the fancy fragility of his ceremonial scabbard like a claw from a kitten’s paw; apparent to the herald a familiar and practical weapon, carried despite the air of festivity, only to be set aside when absolutely necessary. In spite of his disarming forthrightness, John Clarence was cautious at heart, or mistrusting, years of whispered slurs and backward glances giving him a cocky, challenging stance defended by a ready hand on the sword, a sharp tongue and a belligerent love of confrontation. He was waiting silently for the herald’s response, knowing the purpose of his raking gaze, and luxuriating in the frank regard, like a man with nothing to hide, or confident in the hiding.

_On your breast, the arms of the kingdom, differenced by a label of three points ermine, each cantoned gules. What fearsome patronage. What equally fearsome opposition._

“And those you warn of?” Montjoy said at last, “Their gut swings them another way? Shall they try to murder me in the street?” Brought to the air, it sounded ridiculous to the herald, but Clarence nodded sincere and enthusiastic, a glint in his eye charged with sparkling, sparking excitement. “Faceless and hidden in shadow, they shall, but I will help you lure the wolves into the light,” he said, showing his teeth in a wide humorless snarl, putting the herald on edge. His fingertips tapped lightly on the pommel of his sword, restless for action. “Sounds dangerous,” Montjoy said with a sigh. “I have had enough of storms, good Sir Knight. Think me not ungrateful, but I decline.”

“Better an enemy you know, in a situation you can control, don’t you agree?”

Montjoy shrugged, sketching a noncommittal gesture with his hand. He was rapidly gathering from the wolfish grin that Clarence would do as he pleased, and the knight’s goodwill was all that had prompted this conversation. In truth, he was not being given a choice, only a warning. Ignoring his apprehension, the Englishman covered the essence of his plan with malicious, delighted energy. “Everyone will be drunk to high heaven after the feast. It will be the best time to provoke them into action, and I only have to provide the spark for the flame.” To illustrate, he closed his hand into a fist with gusto, making the herald wince. “Then you will know the wolves from the sheep.”

_And then I will know their teeth._

“At the Red Lion then,” Montjoy said, salvaging at least his prior plans. At least he would have friends he could count on, not this impish wayward protector he could not predict. The knight shook his hand with a grip that was marginally too strong to be comfortable. “How can I trust you, John of Clarence?” Montjoy asked, his tone jesting and his eyes deadly serious. “Of course you can’t, Montjoy King of Arms,” the Englishman replied, equally amused, equally somber, “Except that I find this all very entertaining.” He chuckled to himself as he released the herald and gestured invitingly down the passageway.

They exited into the courtyard together, conversing with some reserve about Southampton castle as if afraid to belittle the great gruff building while they were mired in its heavy interior. The afternoon sun hung wan and low, exhausted by its own shortened winter path, its pale light sickly and translucent. It touched the tops of the walls so tentative, the fringes of pennants hanging limp, and cast fleeting shadows behind the pairs of servants as they passed briskly in and out of the kitchens, immersed in preparations for the feast.

As they crossed the threshold into the open air, Montjoy saw a familiar squire detach from his waiting perch and come for them directly. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Clarence’s gaze travel leisurely along his line of sight, then quick as thrown knife flick back to him, shrewd and searching. “Remember that reckoning you asked for?” John murmured, bemused. “I forget to mention Henry’s poor squire has been looking everywhere for you.” He fielded the herald’s evil eye with his customary nonchalance, and waving to the approaching boy, made his escape back into the keep.

“Hugh,” Montjoy said tiredly, forestalling the squire’s earnest greeting, “Spare me, I beg you.” Frowning, uncertain if the herald was joking, the boy tugged at him urgently. Feeling wicked, feeling exhausted, he planted his feet and refused to move. He looked into a pouting, determined face, and knew suddenly, with the greatest confidence, that the Archbishop would be chewing off his head.

“Sir Herald, the king, sir.”  
“What about the king?”  
“He wants to see you.”  
“I gathered as much, Hugh. When?”  
“ _Now_ , sir.”

_Lord God, is this a punishment upon me, or your own Archbishop? I do not think it fair to either of us._

“I see—can’t it wait?”  
“As soon as you came back, he said.”

_I haven’t even managed to leave._

“Can you simply pretend you didn’t see me?”  
“Sir!”  
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”  
“Really, sir...”  
“A jest, a jest. Where is the king?”  
“In the armory.”  
“How old are you again?”  
“Nine.”  
“You will make a fearsome knight I think.”  
“Thank you, sir.”

_Not exactly a compliment, I’m afraid._

He was delivered directly to the armory by the dutiful messenger, a gloomy subterranean series of rooms constantly flickering with an oily light that glittered off the swords and spears and axes littering the walls and stands and filling the air with a living malevolence, a murky quicksilver sea within whose dense fastness everything else was eerily submerged, where the dark maces brooded and the flails hung silently, watching. Henry looked up with a quiet smile as they entered, and thanked his squire. A sword hung loose from his right hand, and he had changed to match his surroundings, discarding the royal trappings, the jewels and the feckless silk, for a comfortable, utilitarian set in charcoal and mahogany and black, differentiated from those of his knights only by its superior quality and paired with worn gloves and scuffed boots that exuded the well-tuned comfort of age.

_He will have to change again for the feast in his honor. In crimson and gold he will officiate. In a crown of rubies._

The herald could see pride suffuse the squire’s skinny frame beneath the king’s warm gaze, and sighed inwardly to see such devotion. “I have a theory,” Henry said brightly, as he dispatched his squire outside, “A surprising theory you will no doubt illuminate, but first, take this sword.” The herald accepted it wordlessly, thrown into uncertainty by the king’s jarring change of mood. Like stains in the sand, like blood in the rain, Henry’s ire had faded away, and his disposition was warm and sunny. “It sits in your hand comfortably,” Henry observed, who for himself turned back to the stand to consider its remaining cargo. “What do you make of it?”

_It is the third sword of the day, and the third sword too many._

Hefting the sword Montjoy observed an obsidian cabochon embedded in the pommel, impossibly expensive, nearly opaque with darkness, though its color as it caught the light was a rich and lucid purple, lovingly polished to a Dionysian shine. The blade matched its counterweight in elegance, tapering so subtly as to trick the eye into thinking its geometry fluid, with a single straight fuller sweeping down its center to render it light, strong, and masterfully forged, short enough to wield with one hand but long enough to contest at arm’s length. Though it made him uneasy to hold a weapon in the king’s presence, he could appreciate its balance and beauty. In short, a weapon fine enough for a king, and nearly too fine for the making of war.

As he opened his mouth to reply, Henry, having chosen a longer, plainer sword, drew it out of the stand and swung it towards the herald in a single smooth motion, the arc of the blow at midlevel, his elbow extended so the reach of the blade extended past the herald’s arms, far enough to touch the cloth of his tabard. The stroke was fast, and vicious, and without thinking Montjoy caught the king’s sword with the flat of his own, hard up against the crossguard so that his own lighter weapon held rigid against the onslaught, and sliding his left foot back parried the attack away from his body with a rising stroke, the two blades gliding off each other with a sleek, sensual screech of metal on metal that carried on long past their separation, and ending in a defensive stance, holding loosely a multipurpose diagonal guard.

Montjoy blinked a few times, suddenly bewildered, and after a tense moment, lowered his weapon. Shocked awake by the impact, the wound in his shoulder sparked and flared, rousing a choir of injuries in agonizing unison. His grip on the leather-wrapped hilt slackened where his fingers trembled. Henry was beaming with triumph. “You say God did not make you for the sword, Montjoy, but you are its student nonetheless.” Unhappy at being tricked, the herald deposited his blade into an empty stand, the rasp of its honed blade against the pig iron holders disconcertingly loud in the closeness. “A father would not have only one son trained for battle,” Henry mused. “Even if his eldest was destined for tabard and baton.”

“You could have simply asked, your majesty,” Montjoy said with a frown, rounding a water-filled barrel to edge towards the entrance. In light of Henry’s good mood and apparent lack of official purpose, he was hopeful of a quick retreat without the king’s formal permission. “And you would have said something dry about duty, no doubt,” Henry grinned, bringing up his sword to bar the herald’s way.

_How infuriatingly exactly correct. I shall not disappoint._

Corralled by the long blade Montjoy retreated deeper into the armory, where the acrid stench of smoke and oil was stronger, condensed beneath low stone vaults still bearing the chisel-marks of the master mason. “My father thought a herald should be able to recognize a knight by his technique, even if he wore no device,” he said, one finger lightly touching the battered tips of the morningstars as he passed, “the better to inform the commander in the turmoil of battle.” Into the low rooms, Henry followed, sweeping aside the chains that hung from the ceiling so he could keep the herald in his sight. No gentle candle illumination or pristine daylight so deep into the castle storage, here only bare torches crackled in their black holders, giving off more heat than light, burning so impure. No sound but the biting flame and their dusty footsteps, deep tones echoing deeper and darker, sharp notes blunted between the oppressive embrace of rough stone walls.

“My father taught me to use a stick, if I had no sword, and if I had no stick, to use a rock,” said the king, “When he wasn’t busy wishing for a better son.” Inwardly, Montjoy shuddered at the thought of having Henry Bolingbroke for a father.  
“He would not wish that now,” he said, evoking a distant smile from the king.  
“Perhaps. What he wished for was not France, but the Holy Land.”

_He wanted to wash away his sins with Ottoman blood. But the sins of the father are not borne by the son._

“It is not too late for your majesty to take up his crusade.”  
“You will not be rid of me that easily.” Bemused, Henry watched the herald skirt the edges of the cluttered room, one hand gently trailing the uneven walls, as if to divine the location of a secret passage. His fond eye made Montjoy shiver more than the still icy air underground, more than the damp earthy chill conducted through his fingertips.

_The son is carefree. The son is a conqueror._

“Your majesty,” Montjoy sighed, turning to face the king across a haphazard field of hilts and handles. From barrels they jutted, each at a different angle, and in neat crates they lay, all in one line. “What do you require?” Through the flickering ghostly gloom, Henry smiled without reservation.

“May I not have a moment of your time, dear herald?”  
“I have urgent news for the Archbishop.” Montjoy made a helpless, apologetic gesture, and Henry raised an eyebrow at it.  
“I’m sure the good ambassador will not begrudge me. No doubt you have messages for me as well.”  
“Does your majesty wish to receive them?”

Though he had asked the question in all wide-eyed honesty, Henry laughed so cheerfully, so intense as to be insulting, and with his empty hand waved away the thought of it. “Put one tenth of that devotion to the sword, Montjoy, and think what you could accomplish on the battlefield. I should like to see it. When was there a time you wielded a weapon in earnest?” He crossed the room to stand before the herald, his sword stealing by playful, caressing the raised thread of embroidered tabard, seeking out opposition.

“A long time ago,” Montjoy said, putting up a hand to ward away the blade. It danced out of his reach, teasing and frustrating, always returning to prevent his escape.    
“You have not forgotten how.”  
“Hah,” he could not help but smile at the thought. “I remember the cuts and bruises. I remember my brother’s scorn and my instructor’s scowl.” As soon as it had surfaced, the smile faded away.  
“Your brother’s scorn?”  
“For every one-tenth I gave, he gave ten. It was his passion. I could not compete.”  
“A disgrace to firstborn sons everywhere,” Henry teased.    
“This family is nothing but disgrace.” Gently self-deprecating, the herald caught Henry’s eye through the flickering torchlit gloom and shrugged, denying the bitterness.  
“You consider yourself a disgrace?” asked the king, his tone delicate, and disbelieving.  
“My brother may yet redeem us in the Holy Land. I have no means to.”  
“You saved a man from the sea.”  
“I should not have.”  
“You stood in front of that young Count like he was your own brother,” Henry said softly.  
“No man should have to die for honor.”

If his voice was bitter, recriminatory, he did not hide it, but the anguish snarling his face he hid in the shadows that nested by the thick proliferating columns and in the feet of their muscular arches. Henry sighed, and swung his sword through the air, as if testing its ability to slice through the musty wreaths of smoke. “You of all people should understand. If a man has no honor, he has nothing.” Montjoy paused by a hanging suit of armor to stare at the ground.

“I should understand.” He whispered distantly as he stalked through the maze of metal, circling around the king, testing the swiftness of the blade that always darted forward to bar his way. “Perhaps my brother would be studying with the Thomists at Salamanca. Perhaps he could be a cardinal’s aide in Avignon. And my brother would have given his life at Agincourt, and my father would be wearing this tabard in your kingdom.” Turning, he stared at Henry without emotion, and said, “If they had not given their lives over to honor.”

Henry finally cornered him by the rear walls of the last room, nearly empty but for the dirt and cobwebs and the assortment of discarded greaves and vambraces scattered across the ground that crunched as the king strode through them, the longsword between them backing the herald up against the wall as Henry advanced. “What would you have done in your brother’s place?” he asked with soft concern, raising his weapon. Mutely, Montjoy studied the tip of the blade as it came near to his cheek and brushed across the line of his jaw until the edge was at his neck and the king was close enough he could count the threads of the ribbon ties that held his shirt closed. “What if it was your honor at stake?” Henry murmured, pressing in so close they were face to face, and the sword had an edge at both their throats.

“What if I were to kill you, unless you kissed me now?”

*

_I remember soft illumination through the flesh of wide-lobed leaves, turning them translucent, staining the cloisters emerald and gold in the amber afternoon. The smell of freshly turned earth, and of sunbaked sandstone. Amidst the clean, stark buildings, in the hushed atmosphere, time seemed to move more slowly, giving the meek the time they needed to inherit the world._

Comforted by the soft, pleasant weather and the pristine silence in the corridors of stone, he paused at the gate to the interior garden, one hand resting contemplatively on its arched planks, filled with admiration for the beauty of mother church. The swirling of dust accompanied his cloak as it settled, tracked in from rough roads and giving sun-dappled form to his general air of being gently worn down by the turning world. Closeted by the close embrace of cathedral, dormitory and refectory, no wind shook the branches of the trees in the little garden and all was still but for the fluttering wings of speckled brown birds as they chattered boisterously and fought and ate without regard for sacred silence. In the tower, bells were ringing, calling those arobed to their afternoon prayers, so he was alone in the forest of standing stones, where his every breath settled as fallen snow amongst the monoliths.

Thus lost in a reverie, he did not respond as someone called his name, the shout followed by the hasty slapping of sandals echoing off grey stone vaults, and then, a warm hug that brought him blinking out of his daydream. “Matheiu, aren’t you supposed to be at prayers?” he berated half-heartedly, though he returned the embrace with enthusiasm. “Come now, it is only None service, and they shall not want for me. Much rarer a sight is my big brother, who has finally deigned to visit,” the youth replied with an arch smile, “Though immensely difficult, he has managed to pry himself from the seat of his horse, from which he has seen all the world, to visit this grey stone prison.” The dramatic retelling of his life, pantomimed with gusto, made the herald chuckle. “The world is all dirt and blood, little brother,” he sighed, turning away from the sunlit gardens, “a hell to this quiet heaven.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were the one stuck in here.”

He was brown and road-weary from the journey, his riding attire handsomely aged and the tan shirt beneath soft and frayed, the sleeves slightly too short from when it had been made for a younger self. But beside the slim youth in his severe clerical smock, he was a debonair adventurer, complete with red trimmings on his cloak and metal on his belt and boots, and though he slept more nights ahorsed than not, he did not wish for a moment their places exchanged. It must have showed in his wan smile, his secret inclinations, because his brother shook an ink-stained finger at him accusingly.

As they walked side by side down the vaulting arcade, he marveled at how his brother had grown into the stature of their father, lean, tall and dark-eyed even as his face had remained his mother’s, far more fine-boned than his own, with a structure as delicate as the wings of sparrows. Their father’s favorite, the youngest and most beautiful child of the small family, and the last thing their father had by which to remember the wife he had married out of love, so much so that his great affection had transpired to leap to his eldest son, who with endless patience, ceded everything he could to his little brother.

As they passed through the empty refectory into the grounds he asked the questions he knew their father would ask of him in turn, and his brother answered volubly, all smooth sophisticated phrases and scholarly elegance even as he complained about perpetually cold classrooms, dusty manuscripts and the heaviness of the Latin compared to French. “It is a language designed to torment,” the youth groused, slender fingers waggling in the air as if to mimic the agonies inflicted by droning intonation. He only smiled and shrugged, barely remembering the sere and dusty days of his own scholarship, long since evaporated into the far murkier intrigues of court and country, and the rough rolling dictums of natural speech that twisted and changed from person to person, moment to moment, requiring the messenger’s constant and meticulous attention. “Here, I have something that will cheer you up, maybe even distract you from the Latin for a while.” At the sight of his present, a wide and knowing grin spread over the youth, who wasted no time in tearing off the cloth covering.

“Exactly what I asked for! Thank you.”

Against the youth’s rough robes, overly large and well worn, and his scribe’s hands, pale and unlined, the knife’s sleek silhouette was jarring, but at one glance it was clear the weapon was well-made; its blade taking a fine edge and the metal polished with care. “Be careful,” the herald warned through a wistful smile, remembering how John had cheated it off a brash Bohemian knight with some daring sleight of hand. “What possible need you could have for a knife while learning your prayers I will never know,” he said affectionately. “Does Father know about this?” asked the youth, running a finger down the back of the blade. “Hush,” he replied, “it is our secret. You know he does not approve of any distractions to your studies.” Unable to meet that earnest gaze, thick emotion rising in his throat, the herald glanced away to the brilliance of the fields and sky beyond the encircling stone wall, the gently rolling hills and winding paths, here and there interrupted with beguiling stands of cypress and cedar and magnolia. “Are you growing up too fast, Matheiu? Stay carefree yet, I tell you. Before long you will be travelling further than I, in far richer company, and I hope you will have no need of knives.”

Distant strains of myriad voices raised in song reached them where they were amongst the gardens, hymns from the cathedral carried by an eastern wind with the tender fragrance of lavender and thyme, so fleeting and tenuous as to be angel song, that which is in a language that cannot be spoken by men. For a fleeting moment he could see his brother’s lips moving absent-mindedly with the music, tracing out by rote the syllables of divine devotion. “Is it true the plates are made of gold, in Avignon? And there they serve boars’ heads and swans’ necks and castles made of the meat of roast birds?” his brother asked, eyes turned to the horizon as if to see the blunt, powerful towers of the papal palace rearing up over the grounds. “And the goblets and the knives and the cakes besides,” the herald replied with utmost confidence, having never dined there.

“That would be a thing to see indeed.”

Perhaps if he had been less distracted by the sweet wind and soft song, his mind wandering to the long and winding road, he would have heard the slightest touch of sorrow in his brother’s voice, the faintest of grief, but as it was he had gone on to fanciful stories, more imagined than real, of the foreign courts he had visited with a fat Englishman in tow and the things he had seen all over the world. He told his brother of posturing knights and bejeweled nobles, with egg-sized gems all down the front of their throats. He spoke of floating cities, vast citadels and all the wonders of gold and gemstone, mosaic and marble, sculpture and painting that he had seen decorating the great palaces. And he told him he had seen their father speaking with the king, so close he had been, gesturing with his arms a distance less than a span, to the royal person, whispering into his ear.

“Someday you will be so close to the king too,” his brother said sagely, nodding his head. “And you will be so close to the Pope,” he mused in return, but the boy only grimaced self-consciously at the familiar refrain. “And Philippe?” The herald held up his open hands in mock disgust. “Ah you know that one, he will be Constable of France, of course. He will be more renowned than Charny, and he too will defeat a hundred knights with only the Oriflamme in his hands.” They stopped by the well in the center of the courtyard, and his brother drew water with quick, familiar tugs of the rope, so they both washed their faces and their hands, and he could prepare for the journey back.

Cool and clear, the well water in his cupped hands reflected overhead skies a deep and brilliant sapphire, with pale streamers celebrating its vast expanse in misty arcane signs, as if a divine finger writing holy words upon the world. It was a beautiful day, and his horse was young and fast and idly he thought he would gallop back across the fields if only because he could. “Charny died that day, though he could have surrendered and lived,” said his brother abruptly, leaning over the edge to stare down into the dark depths of the well. The unfamiliar topic cast a frown of confusion across the herald’s face. “Do you think he did what was right? To die as he did for honor’s sake?” Without hesitation, almost without thinking, the herald answered, “Of course. He knew to bear the royal banner is to die defending it.” The words were charged with a careless, shadowless sincerity, and he was as certain as a Daniel proclaiming innocence before the heathens. “But the king surrendered—” the youth pointed out.

“Ah, but a king is not like the rest of us. Honor is the only way by which men can hold their heads high amongst other men, but a good king should consider the country before himself. As for Charny, well, do you not think it a wonder of our world, that any man, if he so chooses, can be a hero?”

Stubbornly, Mathieu shook his head. “I think we live like strangers in our own bodies,” he said. Sensing the nub of a difficult discussion the herald perched on the well’s edge and folded his hands with a questioning expression. “And I think you must explain.” The youth sketched out with his hands a sieve, wide as the world and all encompassing, his fingers its fine netting through which he looked at his brother through one eye, somber as a magistrate. “We take our life and we strain it through so many rules and thoughts and codes that at the end of the day, these, our actions, are no longer our own. They are those of a stranger.” Though his brother seemed so earnest, so concerned about something, the herald could not understand the nature of the problem and in his mind quickly attributed it to the intellectual pursuit of a scholar, probing the well-defined boundaries of the world as if they were offensive in their stability and assuredness. “What a curious notion,” he said, uncomprehending, “Why should any man’s thoughts be a stranger to his neighbor’s? Kings shall think about ruling, knights about fighting, farmers farming. It is the natural way of the world.”

“And if I do not agree with my neighbor’s actions? If he offends me in some way?”  
“Then law will be the judge. And if there is no law, simply follow your heart. That way you shall not be fearful of acting out a stranger’s life.”  
“How can I be sure my heart is right?”

The herald chuckled, and stood up again, ending the discussion by patting his brother’s shoulder. “You will know,” he pronounced sagely, “Some actions are more honorable than others.” Mathieu looked up and met his eyes, searching therein and finding absolute certainty, so the youth turned upon him a smile so bright as to seem fragile, like sunlit glass.

“Your answer is too simple for a complex problem, brother.”

“Your problem is too complex for a simple herald,” he retorted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	14. No Rest for the Weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A herald's work is never done.

He wanted to tell the king to never speak of his brother again. He wanted to brush the sword aside and simply take Henry at his word, as if the world were black and white. He wanted to be anywhere else but in the subterranean gloom, in danger of his life, in danger of his honor. Instead, he set his head back against the wall and wished the cool stone could commute away his troubles. They danced like fever beneath the skin, like breaking waves, a fury glimpsed through closed eyes, revealing itself seated in the heart; they were not troubles, but desires, not thoughtful melancholy, but temptation without end. 

“Is this the value you place upon our lives, your Majesty?” he said sadly, “A Frenchman is worth so little in your eyes.” The softly treading solemn accusation slipped around the king’s guard and penetrated the glittering crystal core, catalyzing a reaction like little fissures in the clear aquamarine material, like little geysers tapping through the mantle of Henry’s composure. “If you feel the toll is so valueless, simply pay it—” Henry said, yet undaunted, grinning with no small mischief in mind, “and I will let you pass freely.” The sword’s edge did not waver, though they both breathed a little more raggedly. Here in the last and most abandoned of rooms, the single torch flickered and spat oil and shadow and the only things that shone in its limpid light was the long blade between their throats, like a nip of frost at the soft skin of the neck, and the king’s eyes, direct and daring.

“But in your Majesty’s eyes I will have surrendered my honor?” Montjoy asked. Henry only shrugged, and smiled the wider. Straightening his shoulders, leaning forward, the herald changed his tone, taking on a crisp English diction like a thief pulling up his cowl against the light. “If it be a sin to covet honor—” Recognition bloomed across the king’s face, chased with uncertainty.

“Then I shall not be a knowing sinner.”

Boldly, he reached for the sword, closing his left hand over the hilt, over Henry’s right; bearing down the blade between them, and with his right on the king’s shoulder tentative, he moved in close till he saw nothing but pale blue irises framed with gold. He said, “Honor is a fool’s dream of life. An imagined made-up thing of empty gestures much like this one.” Then, on Henry’s right cheek, then on his left, the herald leaned in and kissed the king softly, deliberately, lips brushing by skin like the barest caress of cool mist at dawn, like the finest thread of silk from the Orient tracing taut over the eye of a slender ivory needle, only sheer and tenuous potentials, moving atoms to their inevitable destinies without force or impulse.

“Here is mine, for you, as requested,” he whispered, pulling away. He released both hands their burdens hotly burning, the touch palm to palm far more damning than the common greeting, and slipped past the king. “I have answered your question, your Majesty. Please, give me leave.” Henry reached for his arm as he veered away into deeper shadow, but the herald pretended not to notice. “Forget all this human vanity, Herald, all these airs and graces,” Henry said, lowering the blade. “And be honest with me.”

Montjoy dropped his eyes so he could not be hurt by the other man’s expression, reacting now purely by instinct in his own ill-prepared defense. “How shall I forget thee, King of England?” he asked, skirting the king’s outstretched hand, “When men die for you? Two, and twenty, and twenty thousand?” Henry was adamant. “If the distinction matters not to me, why should it you?” he demanded. “Why fashion walls between us that never existed?” _They have always existed, tall and impassable._ The herald picked his way fluidly through the scattered piles of metal and plate, never turning away from the king, but growing more and more distant as he sought a clear path through the murky tangle of insouciant steel, constantly overriding his own impulse to give Henry exactly what he wanted.

“How shall I forget thee, glory of England,” he said, “on this, the day of your triumph?” Overriding the desire to re-think, re-consider and to revisit the foundation upon which he had built a skeleton structure of a life from that which had been razed by tragedy. The ideals of his own make, trembling in their stocks of stone because an enemy had extended a hand in desire, and his had shook to take it. _These are my walls. These are my beliefs._ Henry shook his head, and said, “Do not raise me false on a pedestal. It is a triumph for God and for all men of England, as much as I.” Finally, Montjoy clasped his arms around his chest, as if beset with frost, and shivering. “How shall I forget thee, Henry of England,” he said with the slightest tremble, “when you have men put to death for the sake of honor?”

Henry frowned, suddenly thoughtful, suddenly distracted. “I think I know you, Montjoy King of Arms,” he said, discarding his sword onto the hard ground with a sharp plaintive chime that made the herald flinch. “You have no fear of death, yet you are terrified of disloyalty.” He gained confidence as he spoke, as if each word was a spark striking light onto the tinder of revelation. “You set no store by honor— yet you would die for the sake of duty.” As the declarations rang out, Montjoy stopped short, his gaze flickering to the king with the uncertain attitude of the sailor faced with emerald lightning dancing in the sky, wary, entranced. “You know how to fight, yet you choose to carry no weapon,” he continued, advancing on the silent man. “You use your body ill,” he said, placing one hand on the herald’s injured shoulder, “but you treat your horse tenderly.” Between finger and thumb gentle, Henry plucked at a yellow lily on the herald’s chest, the one struck through with a ragged rust-red tear, straight through the skin, the one all gory with its soaked up agony, above the heart, he pressed his hand to it. “You always appear calm, but—” Now shaking now still, Montjoy tried to control his breathing that was coming in fits and starts. “Your heart tells me a different story.”

He asked, “What does your heart say?”

Blood drained from the herald’s face, swiftly as if flowing with strong winds, replaced by pale disturbance. He reached up and took hold of Henry’s hand, removing it from his chest. “I told my brother to follow his heart,” he whispered at the monarch’s ear, for a moment enjoying the beat of both their hearts, only a whisper apart, before pulling sharply away. “And see where that led him.”

In the crystallizing silence, energized magnetic like an iron vein struck through by lightning, as attractive, as repelling, instincts wildly raging, in-fighting, Montjoy turned abruptly and fled down the series of interconnected rooms, through the exit into the corridor and past the squire standing guard without a single backwards glance. “Don’t run, Montjoy,” Henry called after him, anxious yet patient, he did not try to follow. Hugh glanced curiously at him on the way out, but sensing something beyond his concern, said nothing, so there was only the dull thudding of his feet on bare stone as Montjoy took the stairs two at a time back into the dusty washed-out twilight of the courtyard, where he leaned against a wooden post, breathing heavily, and in the shadow of its colorful awning, clutched his arms around his chest to hold back the incessant shaking, his eyes tightly shut and his heart still pounding.

The long thin shadows of evening had crept across the swathe of open space, turning dusky sand a glittering gray and setting the flags to flapping shreds of midnight canvas, past which the wind whistled as it fell, descending in pitch. Twilight masked the bloodstains from the afternoon, except where fingers of haphazard torchlight picked them out in slender, amber stripes, darkling against the backdrop of quartz and silver sand, almost beautiful, and haunting. With the moon inexorably rising over the battlements, a clarion call to fest and to feasting and to yet more duties for the long night, Montjoy finally made it beyond the castle walls with the barest hint of a grimace stealing over him.

*

The waterside street swarmed with vibrant, heaving life, stumbling and laughing in the ready illumination thrown by hearthfire and torchlight. Voices raised in raucous song emanated from tavern portals gleaming amber and gold, united only by the occasional shutter-rattling cheer. Windows open to the chill crystal night let fall loose threads of humming conversation and music to entwine the public commotion, weaving a great web of human sound, of vigorous activity. No man would dare sleep that night before the moon had crossed the zenith, nor could he, for his neighbors were up and dancing. Amongst the celebrating English the herald stole, furtive as a field mouse, slipping by in shadows. Humorless, purposeful, he felt conspicuous in the baying festive crowd.

By the end of the main street where road met the water in a great tangle of wooden piers, drunken sailors and shadowy hulks creaking as the gentle swell bore them up and down, the hospital was a quiet haven, a venerable and solemn institution whose stone face seemed to defy merriment. Two hundred years old and protected under royal aegis, God’s House was the poor traveler’s welcome respite as much as it as it was an imperial establishment enjoying the doting patronage of the Plantagenet Bishop. Warm candlelight lit round cinquefoil portals and latticed shutters up and down the cluster of buildings, vivid through clear extravagant glass, and as he passed through the unlatched gate he heard a distant hymn of vespers rise from the main hall, blending and bleeding as it strained through old stone walls, arriving to his ears wordless and infinitely spiritual.

_Domine ad adiuvandum me festina. Make haste, O Lord, to deliver me. I remember._

A familiar face answered his third knock; a curious pixie in plain garb peering through the cracked wooden door hesitant, whose subsequent smile of recognition was warm and entirely unguarded. He sighed to see it; its impact upon him refreshing as sighting a shooting star, and wishing upon it. “Sister Isabelle,” he said, bowing his head as she swung open the door. “Herald Montjoy,” she replied, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek, “You were expected hours ago.” A gesture and a grimace was his only response, eliciting a sympathetic pat on the arm as she let him into the building.

“Follow me. I will bring you to his Grace.”  
“Thank you, Sister, but I know the way. Please, go back to your supper.”

She shrugged and turned back down the hallway, extending a casual invitation for him to join them after his meeting. He nodded absently, and she disappeared around the corner without marking the lack of conviction. There were many tables open for him that night, but he felt the yawning emptiness inside strangely appropriate, and not unwelcome. Redeeming in its own way, sacred in its own way, profaned by the thought of breaking bread.   _When I raise my cup of celebration wine for Henry I shall think of blood in the sand, wine-red, and when I lower it I shall think of ships in a storm, tossing. He screams for God’s attention, but he settles for a human embrace. I shall think of dead men’s skin, arrow stuck in shallow mud._ He shook his head to clear it as he knocked and entered the Archbishop’s chambers.

Radiating light, a three tiered candelabra gilded in soft golden edges the man who stood at the edge of his desk, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating a painting hung in a position of prominence on the eastern wall. Christ seated, leant his head upon his hand, pensive before the very end, and the candlelight fell on his crown of thorns picked out in beaten gold, more precious than a halo, and the raw scarlet strokes of his flagellation; each shadow so lovingly detailed the painting itself was richer than life, a window into a world more vivid than the present, more stark and precise in its nature than messy reality, and bearing the mark of a gothic master. The herald considered it as he waited patiently for the Archbishop’s attention, drawing what insight he could into the clergyman’s mood.

“ _Christus im Elend_ ,” William de Boisratier said finally, after several moments of silence, “he is acquainted with grief—V _ir Dolorum_ , Our Savior, a man of sorrows.” Deeply troubled, he turned to face the herald with a brooding frown. “He knows me well. What sorrows do you bring me today?” Gentle as could be a man cauterizing a wound with red-hot iron, Montjoy said, “Your Grace, your brothers fell at Agincourt.” The clergyman let out a long shuddering sigh like a last breath, fingers bending into claws upon the desk. His worst fears realized, he eked out a forceful, “Who else?” Gravely, the herald brought forth a single folded page, and Boisratier took it with fingers that trembled. For a moment, he held it, helpless and unwilling, locked onto its blank exterior. A single moment of terrible weakness, the herald looking away in sympathy. Then he peeled it open, and Montjoy knew keenly what deepened the chasms of his frown.

Names unrolling in close-packed scrolling lines, written end to end in his meticulous hand and listed by the herald in order of familial closeness; a full enumeration of the Archbishop’s losses sailing their scripted funeral barges down an endless darkened sea of ink. “Who gave them their blessing?” Boisratier asked, low and breathless as if the question lay heavy on his chest. “The Archbishop of Sens,” replied the herald, wincing inwardly, suspecting the answer would sting like salt in an open wound. The militant churchman was a pariah amongst his brethren, a mace-wielding and horse-charging remnant of an extinct breed of warriors for God, now out of place and unwelcome, now untrustworthy with matters of the spirit. As expected, Boisratier grimaced and shook his head. “A madman,” he snarled. “A dead fool,” he lamented, eyes flickering over the name on the page. He raised his head with another vainly suffering inquiry, “And who gave them their last rites?”

“An Englishman.”

He did not know the name of the English priest, and he thought better of reporting the prayers offered by the English army at Henry’s command. Instead, he stood there wordless as the burden of silence mounted. The Archbishop began to shake imperceptibly, like a dark and slender fir in a harsh winter storm, shedding sleek needles of distress. “What happened?” he asked. _What familiar refrain._ _Arrows falling in a silver rain. Shallow mud and shallow graves._ For the man of God, he reported of bitter human folly, of pride in excess and over confidence smashed like so much salvage against rough wooden stakes. As faces contorted with grieving wrath rose clarion from recent memory, he offered up only Henry’s order for execution and his cold battleborn reasons.

_Nothing of his repentance. Nothing of his sorrow._  
_What cares the grieving man for those things?  
_ _I can understand. I can sympathize._

He saw his words fall like petals on a triumphal procession, some unremarked, some sloughed like old skin, and some disturbed by a violent flinch. One by one they fell to the street, where they became nothing more than distant muddied color, barely glimpsed. He came to the end of the account, and distantly occupied, the Archbishop did not seem to notice.

“His Majesty—” he ventured after a pregnant pause, and was silenced by a cold look; a golem rumbling to life, petrification searing off as molten slurry.  
“Does he change his tone?”  
“He does not.”  
“Then say no more. I grow sick of this negotiation.” The Archbishop turned away, back to his silent painting unyielding. “Who shall be the new Constable?”  
“His Majesty has not named him.” With a bony hand, William made an impatient gesture, dismissive and demanding. “My Lord Count of Armagnac has been in Rouen of late,” Montjoy added tactfully.  
“Oh, look how the hawks and vultures come, King of Arms,” William said darkly, hearing a name he liked no more than Jean _sans Peur_ , “After the battle is done. After the battle is _lost_.” His voice was a black morass, clawing at the soul with its bitter misery. “These warlike dogs so shameful. They are not too late to tear a piece off their own countrymen. We are all shamed.” The man crushed the paper between bloodless fingers, his eyes fixed on his Savior in pain. “The peace is dead in the ground, and the English have the taste of our blood. Let the King name another man to push this Sisyphean rock, I have no more breath for it.”  
“What shall I convey to His Majesty?” asked the herald gently.  
“Convey to him and my good Lord, the Duke of Berry, my sincere conviction that England’s King will hear no more diplomacy but his own demands. Convey to him my desire to visit my brothers’ graves. You may give Henry England His Majesty’s message without me. It will do no good to either one.”

_Here is my favor for you, Henry. Through your scheming servant, William Bruges, here is my partiality. My bias revealed._

“Your Grace, the King of England has a message for you.” That made the Archbishop look up from his brooding reverie, bleakly uncurious, his regard deadened. “He extends an invitation to a mass at St Paul’s on Sunday, in commemoration of all the fallen.” For a moment the herald saw a snarl consume the clergyman’s sharp features, leaping out from harsh lined edges and hard glittering eyes like the final lunge of a predator’s long slow stalking, but just as quickly the emotion was caged by an experienced ambassador’s iron practicality. One that knew the request, heavy with implication, would come weighted with equal recompense. It was a measure of his mourning that the moment of unfettered wrath had even washed over him, that caught breath, that hand clenched, now relaxing, now beckoning as he whispered, “What does he dare offer me, this murdering King? What does he _dare_ bring for absolution?”

_He does not trade in boasts or jests. He offers something most valuable._

“He has an accord for Sigismund. He offers unification at Constance.” The Archbishop released the breath he had been holding in an incredulous hiss. “He tears our country apart, and he offers _unification_?” But by his thoughtful gaze, his posture softly unfolding, the herald knew he was tempted, tilting. He knew he could say something to ensure the fall, but hesitated, undecided, and to his frank surprise, Boisratier spoke first. “What do you make of this?” he asked, searching Montjoy’s expression. Knowledgeable and perceptive, the ambassador did not often ask for his opinion, and did not need to. Now, in the harsh light of Agincourt, the Archbishop had found himself newly doubtful, reconsidering his appraisal of England’s king.

“I know naught of matters of the Church,” Montjoy said, taken aback.  
“Forget the ecumenical council.” With the same terse wave from before, the Archbishop demanded more of him, “What of this English King?”

_What does your heart say?_

“For something simple to give, he offers something most valuable,” said the herald, experiencing a piercing ache in his heart, drawing down on every breath.

_Something infinitely valuable for something valueless._

“His diplomacy is simple. Stubborn. But naïve? I think not.”  
“He hung an English soldier on the eve of battle for stealing from a church. I think he does not renege on his promises. I think this is no idle jest.”

_Except it’s not so simple._

“Thus, you think it ridiculous of me to think twice,” said the Archbishop.  
“No, Your Grace,” he said, “I think it is entirely understandable.”

A pious man in mourning, severely dressed and unjeweled, pensive eyes on his divine image, his supper cooling swiftly on his table unheeded; he received the herald’s sympathy uncaring. Arms tightly folded, he deliberated, and Montjoy watched idly in the window the occasional shadow cut across the shadowy cloister beyond, identifiable by their clerical robes, or their simple tunic or long skirt. Finally, the Archbishop let out a heavy sigh and nodded once, abrupt as a cannon retort, soundless yet ringing out. “What more?” he asked, sitting down at his desk and smoothing out the crushed paper with excessive concentration. “Nothing more,” said the herald. He thought he saw a flash of relief cross the Archbishop’s face. At the man’s signal, Montjoy backed out, leaving him grimly re-reading the names of the dead.

*

Hushed and reverent, Montjoy entered one of the few houses of God that received his due respect, and it answered in still enfolding silence. The candle stands were lit sparsely, one in twenty, illuminating bare stone walls and sparse wooden pews. There was a twinkle of gold about the altar, a hint of incense, but the worn stone floor, carefully cleaned, was far more reminiscent of devotion. A solitary priest stood at the end of the nave facing the crucifix, hands clasped loosely behind his back. His comfortable contemplation the herald was loathe to disturb, but as he closed the door behind him, the man turned around and beckoned him forward with a smile.

“Père Jean,” Montjoy said in a low voice, head bowed, one hand brushing by his brow deferential. Sharing none of his formality, the elder clergyman embraced him warmly.  
“Jacques. I have been waiting for you.”  
“I’m sorry,” said the herald, rueful though he knew it was no accusation but a benediction. They spoke in French, his neutral by choice, the other colored with northern heritage. Though by now he had lived longer in England than France, the priest spoke his mother tongue far more readily than his adoptive language.

“Will you accept my blessing?” The familiar question, taking its rote place in their customary routine, drained away his tension and reasserted a world of comforting simplicity. He stripped his weathered gloves and knelt before the priest, offering up his hands, one palm bare, one bandaged and seeping. “I will,” he said. It was ten years ago he had first received blessing, and every year hence, every channel crossing. The day that he did not, he knew, was the day he reneged on his promise. Jean anointed his hands with holy water, and his brow, and said for him a prayer that he mouthed in tandem, eyes closed, never remembering the words. He did not have to tell the priest how he received the blessing without its divinity, nor did the priest have to tell him how he was hopeful every time he offered.

“Saint Julien, patron of travelers, protect you,” Father Jean said solemnly, “Here in his chapel, you are blessed,” raising the herald to his feet. “You have not made your peace with God,” he observed sadly, and Montjoy shrugged. _How shall I come by it? Sudden as a revelation? Or by measures ebbing and flowing? I have only realized his jest at my expense. I have only measured his bloody wrath._

“There is little peace to be had by any in France,” he said. They walked together back down the aisle, and he submitted in silence as the priest’s keen eyes darted over him, taking in the pain that strung his shoulders tight, the stained wrapping on his hand and the smudges beneath his eyes that would tell of sleep deprivation and anxiety to the physician in the clergyman. “You are in poor health,” Jean concluded, “and that is an understatement. Can I conclude you were at Agincourt?”

“I was, but I did not receive these injuries there.”  
“What is more dangerous than a battlefield?”  
“News of that battlefield,” said the herald lightly, belying his darker thoughts.  
“How did His Grace take it?”  
“With more poise than most, though I think he is no less distraught.” A fleeting memory of fire and ice hollowed him in a heartbeat. _A grieving man speaks. Safe conduct be damned. Injury is just another message to be carried._ Swallowing a mouthful of nausea, he asked the French priest, “What have you heard of Agincourt?”

From his frank account of church-commissioned sermons, and royally sanctioned criers, Montjoy judged just how wildly the story had mutated in crossing the channel, like an insistent virus arming itself ever more effectively with every unknowing host, tuned to play the heart of the English beast, to wake it from slumber, and rouse it to dominion. Less the call to execution, the blood-stained knives and gut-strewn stakes, less the mud that drowned the tired, there was heroism to spare for every Englishman, there was a wealth of brilliant, priceless honor to be had, and it blinded him to hear of it. “No,” he said in response to a muted question, “No, that account is not so far off.” So many Englishmen came home that ten more signed up for each one returning, eager for glory, hungry for status and jealous of their neighbors in the mud who for the price of one arrow, one pike, had written their names into history.

They entered the priest’s private study and proceeded into the adjoining bedroom, where the remnants of warmth clung to a smoldering fireplace. Close to the hospital proper, the set of rooms was relatively large, a reflection of his standing as physician as well as clergyman, and infused as his robes were with the distinct aromas of chamomile and frankincense. In the friendly space, neat and comfortably furnished, the herald was at ease like he was in no other place.  Jean waved him into a cushioned chair, and standing over him, folded his arms with a deliberate look.

“Don’t frown at me, Père,” Montjoy sighed, “I’ve had many a doctor.”  
“May I?” he said regardless, and stiffly the herald shrugged out of tabard, tunic and shirt. He knew Father Jean studied medicine as he studied the Book, with devout conviction and an unwavering desire to do good, and was not prepared to languish complacent about the health of one of his charges. “What manner of doctor?” muttered the priest, inspecting the small, tight knot hidden behind his shoulder and the far sloppier ones on both wrists.  
“Two royal physicians,” Montjoy said, as the man eyed his wrist bindings suspicious, and felt compelled to add, “Those I did myself.” He looked away as Jean swiftly unraveled them, having judged them unfit.  
“Lancaster’s physician?” The priest was openly surprised.  
“Thomas of Oxford,” he confirmed.  
“He has visited this hospital,” Jean said darkly, and Montjoy suspected the brisk, supremely efficient royal physician had not made a good impression on his fellow doctor. _Not with your soft heart and light touch, dear Jean. I bet you did not see eye to eye with him._ “These look like his handiwork all right.” He touched one finger gently to the bandaged shoulder, and could not find any purchase between the tight coils of fabric. “But they teach many things at Oxford, far beyond simple medicine. How did you catch his eye?”  
“He asked many questions,” said the herald with a faint smile, staring into the dying fire. “But he also told me a story of how John Herald once broke his arm and leg.” Jean snorted at the mention of the Englishman.  
“I could tell you stories,” he said sagely, and Montjoy perked up, eyes hungry.  
“Such as?”  
“But I will not,” Jean concluded with a teasing grin, “Because I am sworn to secrecy.”  
“Thus I have to rely on the goodwill of strangers,” Montjoy groused, subsiding. “John has more friends than me I think.”  
“He has more tricks up his sleeve,” the priest laughed. “I saw you both in the procession. What a sight. This English king.” _I know what you mean. Sheer magnetism. Completely breathtaking._ “He is the same in person?”  
“Ten times more so,” said the herald, meaning every word, “A hundred times.”  
"How exciting. To see him up close. To have him call your name even.  
"Yes, well—" He paused, discomfited, “Does not his Uncle the Bishop consult you on Hospital matters?”  
“That is hardly the same.”  
“The same Plantagenet name,” Montjoy said, “The same lineage.”  
“The same piety maybe, but not the same spirit.”

“Thank you,” said the herald, as Jean tucked away the last tail of his new bandages, thankful too for diversion. “And no, I do not have time to rest. No time at all,” he said directly to the worried, well-meaning face.  
“Three weeks?” wondered the Frenchman wistfully.  
“Not even three hours. I must go out later.”  
“When will you come back?”  
“Perhaps I will.”  
“Strange,” muttered the priest, eyeing him with newfound curiosity. “You’ve always stayed here in Southampton.” In answer, the herald shrugged, his silent half-smile almost malicious with secrecy.

“Your injuries are not light,” Jean admonished. “You should not be out wandering.”  
“This is not news to me,” he said, smile widening. He closed his eyes and tentatively leaned into the cushions, relaxing further into the posture as the pain that stabbed him front and back quieted. “Two royal physicians,” he whispered, laughing softly.  
“Who taught you to be so stoic all the time? I would like to tell him off.” The priest rose to stab at the embers viciously, stirring them back to crackling life. “Even strong men must know their limits. Wise men certainly do.”  
“My father, possibly—” There was drowsiness in his voice, a fading away that the doctor smiled at with his back turned. “But I am neither strong nor wise you see.” Father Jean put another log into fireplace, and murmuring his excuses, stepped out of the room, ostensibly to procure a supper for them both. Though the priest did eventually return from the kitchens with a filled tray, he did not wake the soundly sleeping man, nor did the herald stir as a blanket was placed over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 4


	15. One Night at the Lion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolves, like worries, come in the night.

_He was twelve. I was thirteen. I remember sparring with him in the courtyard._

At every step, a starburst of dust. At every breath, a fleeting fog. We fenced in the shimmering darkness, the twilight just before sunrise, when the soft screeching of metal on metal was the only sound that broke the gentle silence. With bare blade we fenced, heedless of the danger. With bare feet we fenced, awakened to the pulse of a world in turmoil. In the inner courtyard, newly laid sand from the celebration the night before tossed and stirred beneath us, coating our soles with a fine white veneer as we sent spurts skyward with our paired dance, like we were walking not on land but on cloud-matter— heaven-matter.

_I was never going to win. The determination was always his. The overwhelming drive._

We sparred merciless, imagining our tutor’s eyes probing from the sidelines. Pitting brother against brother was his style, and he had two prime candidates, young, fierce, and deadly serious. One tall for his age, thin, meticulous in every action, thinking hard and too much; the other sturdier and stronger, faster but too reckless. We were silent through our exertions, never speaking, eyes meeting like our crossed blades as we tried to read each other, body and mind, we sought advantage and found only familiarity, found only family. There was a franticness to the actions, a passion that surpassed mere training, and a recognition of something congealing in the crystal clear air that made us grip harder, move faster and lunge further, a tango in a twisted mirror, the reflections imperfect in form.

_He sought our father’s proud eye. He thought he never received it. But he had._

In a moment, it was all over. You feinted and I followed through. The edge of your blade swept down my padded vest, splitting it from neck to waist so suddenly I fell backwards in shock, the first uttered sound of the morning escaping my lips. A breathless, fearful gasp of surprise at the sudden clammy touch of atmosphere on naked skin. In your distress, you had overestimated your power. For heartbeats, we were both still, breathing heavily, I laid out on the courtyard ground, you bending over, hands on your knees, shoulders trembling as we exhaled in unison, and the spinning ground and sky slowly re-aligned. I relinquished my blade into the dust, careless as if it were nothing but wood again, nothing but a childish plaything. I knew it would never after be mine to wield. “You win,” I yielded.

_I think our father knew us well, pushing one and pulling the other. With just two it balanced._

From my vantage point, you were a giant where you stood, a fell Scottish myth looming large over wintry straits, your silhouette picked out by the castle’s torches as they flickered and shone through narrow windows like so many beady watching eyes; the eyes of distant Gods gambling over the outcome of man meeting monster for the first time. But their hero was poorly chosen, and fallen. Grim-eyed and thin-lipped, you watched the thrown up motes of dust swirl down around my discarded weapon. “Gorgan always said you were his brightest student,” I sighed, recalling the broken-nosed trainer with a twinge of discomfort. The gaunt battle-hardened knight had not disliked my aptitude, but in sheer martial savagery I had been found wanting, and he only knew to try and beat it in with a blunt stick.

_The last time we would ever practice together. We knew in our hearts, but neither of us dared to say it._

You crumpled into a loose heap on the sand, hanging your head so your ragged fringe fell down over your eyes. Who was there to make you cut it? I heard again our mother’s laughing, quizzical tone as she fussed over its length, her hands thrown up in the air, demanding, “Where does it all come from?” I would have smiled, but you caught me off guard then, your sudden question searing through the half-formed memory, the last word twisting over like a scalded lizard in silent anguish. “What do you think of her?” you asked, and without thinking I replied, “Does it matter?” I know the answer upset you as you clenched your hands into the sand and let the grains tumble sparkling in the gloomy dawn from your open fingers, watching them catch the wind and flow away into nothingness. “How can you say that? You know it does. She is—” You stopped yourself, and turned away angry.

_She is the lady of the house now. Ever since last night. She is the matron and the mistress, but not the mother— not ours at least. Not yours at all._

Did you hear your grief echo forlornly in my heart? A small sound in a large empty room. A small child amusing himself in a large empty house. Or did you only mark my stoic smile as I propped myself up into a sitting position, and gave you a brief, one-armed hug. “I don’t know.” I had no diplomacy then, and little perception. I learnt those things later, from an errant, erring teacher. “She has a kind smile I think. You won’t be here for long regardless.” Although it was nothing I hadn’t said before, you looked around hopefully, to be reassured another time. “Soon you’ll be a squire in the service of the king. And when you’ve fought so valiantly for him, he will remember your name as he lays the cloak of the Order about your shoulders,” I said with a grin, “and I will record your arms into the lists.”

_He did not ask our father, when it came time to choose his arms. I don’t know if he ever understood how much it had hurt the old man._

There was the castle rumbling to life all around us, and over the hills, distant, monastery bells were ringing, their bright and beautiful charm shattering into crystal dissonance to me, blighted somehow, by the knowledge that I would not be hearing them tomorrow. _Bells I have not heard in years, I wonder if they still ring the same song. Oh, but the bellringer must have changed since then._ “Come on,” I said cheerfully, more cheerfully than I felt, “Let’s pack this up. I must make ready to leave.” All of a sudden, you were crying, your head turned away self-consciously but I saw the silent tears beading beneath the dark mass of hair to fall, diamonds in the twilight. I saw them turn the dark ground matte and felt panic, but tried not to show it, felt the hot pressure behind my eyes rise up in response, but tried to contain it.

“Philippe, what is the matter?” I was the eldest after all. Heartsick, and stoic. You shook your head mutely, and I could only guess at what had upset you, with all my flawed, distracted insight. “I won’t—” You broke in with a cracked cry of “She has a son!” The news made me rock back on my heels. “What? How do you know?” I demanded. I remembered seeing little, hearing less and tasting nothing at the wedding banquet, the abrupt news of my apprenticeship far away from home crowding out the festive sight of ruddy cheeked men, their toothy open grins and the smell of wet straw and fire-warmed dog and gamey meat charred on the spit turning to ashes in my mouth. “I overheard Father talking about it.”

_Oh, how we were bitter, jealous children. I came around to him eventually, but I don’t think he ever did._

“So what,” I said, shrugging. “So we will have a step-brother.”  
“He is our _half_ -brother,” you snarled, your rage revealed in an accusatory hiss. The news did not make sense to me. It was too dense in the dawn’s light, too mired for a tired mind to unravel.  
“I don’t understand. Father—”  
“He never cared about Mother. He’s always had _her_.”  
“Philippe,” I sighed heavily. “We’ve talked about this.”  
“Don’t you see? He is sending you away because she doesn’t want other children around when hers come. Her children. He is sending us away.”  
“We were leaving anyway,” I said, though I couldn’t meet his eyes. “We were always going to leave.”

_With the third— the contrast was too stark. Too much._

“I won’t come back,” you said, staring down the swiftly stirring castle keep with clenched fists, more solemn than you’ve ever been. “Not with her here.” And still I did not take you seriously. I should have known it was no idle threat, but a promise. A promise kept in full _._

*

He woke with a start from the grey past, small sounds filtering into the silence of his dream with all their mundane simplicity. The snapping of a log in the hearth as it split from the heat, the soft breaths of Father Jean and the crisp crackle as he turned a page of the book he was reading, and from the room above, the heavy tread of feet that stirred the dust on the ceiling boards and precipitated their descent. Words half-remembered, and soundless, heard in the mind, faded into nothing more than listing regret.

Lazily, he watched the motes pass through the brilliance of the moonlight by the hazy windowpanes, and just for a moment deeply appreciated their beautiful hidden serenity. The fire was pleasantly warm, the chair comfortable and the blanket comforting but the siren call of time and circumstance was not to be denied, and sighing, he levered himself up to a light-headed, blurry-eyed, tentative readiness for the night. Stretching carefully, tight bandages shifting with his shoulders, he took a deep breath of preparation. From across the room, the priest’s disapproving gaze pinned him.

“Take my advice, Jacques,” said Jean from his own languid seat. He looked sternly over the top of his leatherbound volume, and Montjoy returned his reproach with an affectionate smile. “Go back to bed.”  
“I told John I would meet him,” Montjoy said, though lingering lethargy tempted him sorely. “He will worry if I do not show up.”  
“A feeble excuse. John Herald will come here if he worries.”  
“You are right, of course, but nonetheless, I go.”  
“Perhaps you think your injuries will simply go away if you ignore them?” Jean inquired acerbically.  
“You know me best of all, Père,” he said, passing through the door with a wave.

The sweet lavender clinging to the air was a delicate cloud of sensory frosting that lifted the strong heady base of old wood and young wine into Roman decadence, reminding him of the home he had relived in spirit. He remembered the fields in bloom, their vivid color and vibrant activity, from the smallest bee to the worker hunched over her basket to the angular shadow the soaring hawk made over the ground as it passed overhead on its mousehunt, everything precise and pristine in the gentle and inviting weather of the south. He remembered all the little details he had thought forgotten, how the bells had sounded through his narrow bedroom window, and the temperature of the small pond in the woods where they had taught each other to swim, and the slight bend in the path to the castle that obscured its sudden downwards slope, making all the horses trip if their riders were not careful. Though he had known in the great castles of France, there was only blood and death and politics to be had, he suddenly realized all that he had lost sight of on his travels for the throne. But home had been lost long ago, on a misty morning, when without knowing he had thrown it all away behind the saddle of his horse, looking only to the road.

_Two brothers lost while looking only to the road._

Compared to that gentle garden of memory, the English city was small, cramped and bitterly cold as Montjoy stepped out of the protected cloister into the street. He left his tabard behind to brave the howling November winds coming off the sea coast with only his weathered traveler’s attire, feeling every tooth of the season come down cruelly into his flesh. The backbone of the port town was the wide street that ran from coast to castle in a hook shape, and sprinkled with the firelight from a hundred windows, that celebratory night it was bright enough to illuminate the wild, flushed attitudes of the Englishmen that thronged its passage, and the quaver in their step as they made loud, haphazard progress from one brimming cup to the next. He was late for his meeting certainly, marking the height of the moon above the horizon through the fence of peaked roofs. The feast would have since ended and all its red-cheeked participants disgorged onto the town to wreak high-spirited mayhem like a herd of wild horses descending upon a field of young wheat. Henry had hung soldiers for disobeying his strict codes of conduct on the continent, but back in bonny England, Montjoy doubted the extent to which the king would discipline his fighting men.

“Where is your coat of lilies, Herald?” From the opposite side of the street he was hailed with a thunderous question that made him start and made heads turn all up and down the busy thoroughfare. “Where is your royal mantle?” The tall knightly executioner from the afternoon, sharp-eyed through the fumes of drink that wreathed his person led a small group of Englishmen to accost him good-naturedly. A genuine smile decorated his blunt features, belying the gruffness in his voice. He considered each of the Englishmen in turn, but none of their faces, lined and bearded, or young and eager, were familiar to him. Henry’s risen, he thought, already busy at work throwing the orders into disarray and the heralds into confusion.

“Sir Robert,” he said, uncertain despite his even tone, “I have no need for it this hour, I hope.” Several of the gathered men frowned at his unaffected French lilt, but red-cheeked and feasted full, they did not rush to animosity. Meanwhile, the Englishman had turned back to his erstwhile audience with an overly solemn countenance and the air of a merchant. “This, my friends, is a herald who isn’t afraid to stand in front of a blade to save a man’s life,” the knight proclaimed, “Now when did you ever see such a thing? Befriend him, I say, so he might do the same for you one day.” Urged impatiently on, they introduced themselves with their given names, in the manner of commoners, and in light of Henry’s newly squeezed and trembling ranks, he committed them to memory with the liquid ease of a routine duty. “Where are you going so attired?” Robert inquired. “To meet the English heralds at the Red Lion? Excellent! We will go with you, and hound them about our new arms,” he declared, winking at a surprised Montjoy.

“May I ask—,” he ventured, as they walked together down to the waterfront, loosely followed by his rowdy, gregarious pack. The Englishman encouraged him with an inviting gesture. “How did the Count attack you?” In answer, Robert pulled back his sleeve and pointed to a new gash in his forearm, long and ragged but shallow. A cut from a dull knife, or a rock with an edge. Fresh bruises on his cheek spoke of a brutal, close-quarters brawl, one man against three. “I’m sorry,” Montjoy murmured, despondent.  
“Do you regret saving his life? No?” Robert shrugged and covered the injury, “Neither does this scratch make me regret sparing it.”  
“You do not care that he tried to kill you? And his men?”  
The soldier’s demeanor was all carefree humor. “You think I killed them for that?” He snorted in disbelief. “They tried hard enough on the battlefield, and still I accepted their gloves.” One moment light-hearted, the next reverential, he said, “The king handed me his own sword to take their lives. So I did.”  
“Of course,” said the herald, “My mistake.” The Englishman cocked his head sideways, squinting through the tenuous firelight like a half-roused hound scenting a rat.  
“You think we common soldiers are shallow,” he said, an arch smile playing about his lips, ready to refute any polite protest. “That we care only for our miserable lives. That we have no sense of honor, and do not understand when our lords and masters play at it.”  
“And you care what a French herald thinks?” Montjoy matched him stare for stare, a harsh icy mirror for his disdain. “I think all you Englishmen are raiders and warhounds, killing and burning what is not yours to take.”

The knight sucked in a deep breath, and the herald held his, expectant, but the anticipated belligerence, the physical reprisal suiting a simple soldier did not descend. Instead Robert whistled long and low in horrified admiration. “Is that how you bruised your face, Herald?” he asked with a grin, motioning to his own cheek. “I suppose it was,” Montjoy sighed, shrugging away the tension that drew his shoulders tight, “I got mine in a manner far less honorable than yours, to be sure.” The flash of anger had come as lightning and left as fleeting mist, leaving nothing more than the taste of grey ashes in its wake. But this Englishman was one who had lowered his sword at least, and he had not deserved the mockery. He had deserved an answer for the deep-seated resentment now venting straight from his heart, now roused in all probability by some unanswerable contempt received at festive tableside from his own countrymen. Now he turned to Robert with simple sincerity, “In my experience, highborn blood makes honor a thing far more pliable, bends it to their needs. To us common men it is stiff as iron, and we are so foolish as to crucify ourselves upon it. No, I would not think you shallow for killing men who sought your life, in fact the opposite, far more shallow is that man who kills without blinking for the sake of his honor. He does not live in the same world as me.”

_Resent not its injustice. Curse not its God. The world is not unfair. It simply is._

“For the sake of honor?” Robert mused, “Sounds like Henry, doesn’t it?”  
“I most definitely do not claim to see the same world as your king,” Montjoy responded.  
“Only this afternoon you were standing right across from him.” The Englishman’s dry laugh suggested he had taken the herald’s words only at face value, at literal meaning, else pretended to.  
“This afternoon he made the world as he would have it,” said the herald, once more mired in an underground heart of stone, breaths coming rough and sharply, reasserting with words echoing hollow a reality that made any sense, “And I stood in front of a sword to stop it.”  
“That’s the second reason you’ve given for what you did, and it is no closer to the honest truth.”  
“How plainly you accuse me,” he said, turning away to hide the blackness surfing up across his vision. “I dispute it.”  
“Easy, friend,” Robert exclaimed, startling him by throwing an arm around his shoulder, drawing him closer. “I have no quarrel with you. Despite what you may have witnessed, I am not a bloodthirsty man. I am not unreasonable. If you care not to tell me, I will stop asking.”  
“Why do you ask so diligently? Is it so curious for a herald to risk his life? To shed his blood? I will tell you our College has had its own share of scars and tragedies.”

“And is it fair England that puts you this constantly on defense?” Robert asked in an undertone, heard over the riotous streetside noise only because the knight had leant in to speak into his ear. “Or the lasting effects of your profession? Do you often find men attack you with their every question?” At the melancholic glance flicked his way, he laughed and threw his hands up in the air. “My God, don’t answer. How tiring it must be. To have to weigh every word so carefully. It gives me a headache. In all honesty, I don’t care if your man tried to kill me, or even if he tries again. Let me ask you one more question only.” They came to a stop before the Red Lion, its closed door fairly humming from the strident sounds coming from within. At the knight’s complacent gesture, his companions streamed past them and into the tavern, each cracked entrance accompanied by a blast of body-heated air, of roaring firelight and scattered words falling from many raucous conversations.

“I owe you that much at least,” Montjoy said with a wan smile.  
“Did you think for a moment I would have taken your life?”  
The herald’s smile grew wider, curving upwards as it did, defying the Englishman’s solemnity with its artless playful nature.  
“I said you were a good man, and it was no lie of mine, but I think in Henry’s name you are capable of anything,” he said, one hand pressed to the tavern door, pushing it open.

Deeply crimson as the fields of Agincourt, the namesake of the public house stood guard above its door, its tufted tail raised in warning, its ferocious gaze blunted by the trials of wind and rain. Montjoy spared a thought for it, as he ventured inside, the icon made by men to brave the storms, to show the way steadfastly, while others hid in warmth and comfort.

_They do not make so many such as you in flesh and blood, Red Lion. At the end of the day, most of our idols, our leaders are made in wood and stone._

Melancholy was not to withstand the furnace of the drinking house, the blast of men’s voices raised to a deafening cacophony, competing with the crash of cups and tables and benches, and the occasional scream as something tipped over or broke or simply exploded, all poor and quiet emotion to be drowned in the raging sea of reckless merriment carrying along its sailors whether they would or would not. In the air, thick enough to be visible, the fumes of a hundred pitchers gathered to hover sinister near the flickering candle flames, absorbing the smoke of fire into their own nebulous bodies so they could take viscous, choking form. Montjoy felt like he had pressed body and soul through a faerie gate as he walked through the door, the air crackling, another place and time taking form and resisting his intrusion with the tangible force exuded from a hundred vigorous bodies. Though energized from the brief peaceful nap, he fought to stay alert in the chaos of things, the sheer excess of things, the bright blazons on every man and high color bursting on every cheek.

The cream of English heraldry was clustered at their own table near the back of the ground floor, their heads cocked attentively to John, Lancaster Herald, who in illustrating some argumentative point was waving his hands over his head with ferocity that looked comical at a distance. From the strained look on William Bruges’ face, Montjoy thought he did not care for Lancaster’s point of view, while sitting next to the burly Englishman, Richard Clarenceux King of Arms tried nervously to avoid the sweep of the man’s overflowing cup as it passed over his shoulder and around his ear. His near kin, Edward, Bedford Herald, nodded vaguely at Guyenne’s shoulder as he put his own drink to his mouth. Preoccupied, they did not mark his entry, but the English archer-knight who had followed him through the door was hailed by his comrades clustered about the barside tables, and across from them, the bastard of Clarence shot him a glance from where he sat with the youngest generation of English knights, some with elevated backgrounds, all with their arms prominently displayed about their person. Immediately as he entered, the youth began a surreptitious storm of whispering amongst his peers, brewing his poison with the deft hand of a master, and like obedient setters the Englishmen followed his finger to their mark, their faces sharpening like pixies with every malicious word dropped into their midst. Montjoy marveled at a picture of the youth in action, every nuance of his expression perfectly in keeping with the falsehoods that he traded freely amongst the glittering specks of truth.

He did not pass their way without trepidation, but in each sneering foam-flecked face he remembered the ugliness of the bloodlust and the berserker’s rage as they cut one down one another and the memory made him angry, sharp; disdainful of their animosity and proud in the face of their scorn; he heard an echo of Henry in the air, laughing merrily at the sight of his arrogance. _Impeccably, impossibly proud, surrounded by hungry Englishmen. They are nothing on their king._ Their eyes tracked his movements like hunched watchers in a dark mews, hungry for a treat and in the air, the general commotion waxed and waned, rising like a hot balloon, swelling past the heads and arms to clamor near the ceiling above the sour fumes and wake the neighbors with the clinking and the thumping and the discordant song. A young aristocrat with three azure roses sewn on his breast was the first to call out from where he was packed tight into the center of a bench of men. “Hey, Herald! Those of us here who did not witness the surrender would very much like a demonstration, if you would be so kind,” he threw his voice across the room, commanding attention with selfish confidence. _Give us leave, great king, to look to our dead. To sort our nobles from our common men. Give us poor French charity._ “Sir William,” Montjoy responded lightly, instantly, his words pale from being drained of emotion, “if the fortification is preventing you from seeing the battlefield, you might want to come around to the other side of it.” The man sputtered angrily and slammed his cup onto the table, but the hearty jeering of his peers and their good-natured shoving prevented him from rising from his seat. John Clarence shot the herald a sly smile, a hint of approval about his eyes.

“Forget surrender, King of Arms,” another, more familiar with him, shouted, “when will you return the spoils your heralds snatched from beneath our noses?” Acutely aware of Robert’s keen regard, of his open attention, Montjoy mimed a grim thoughtfulness, one hand on his chin, the other forming an open palm as he hit upon the solution. “Sir Godfrey,” he said, eyeing the arms of the young knight, “Tell me whose trophies you claim and on my word I will personally arrange the return of what is yours.” Blushing, the Englishman waved away his enquiring gesture. “You should return the rightful claims of every man,” he cried, voice cracking high with the discomfort of having his own prowess on the battlefield called upon for judgment. A shadow of a smile came to Montjoy’s face. _All you young knights, so hungry for glory, I know you beheld the mess and terror of the field and wavered, despite all your training, you quavered, despite all your bravery._ “What of rightful spoils,” he said flatly, “shall be delivered to King Henry.” Groans and murmured grousing greeted his declaration. _You know well, w_ _hat spoils go to your conquering king will not rest a day in the royal treasury before Henry beats them into swords and steeds for his next foray._

“Do not torment the man like a Jew, Godfrey, he needs the gold far more than you,” John Clarence joined the fray with his smooth drawl, “where you would buy women and wine with your bounty, he has to buy his own lords and masters!” They shouted in appreciation for his cleverness, his over-groomed peers, and Montjoy sketched a bow in the young man’s direction. Through the corner of his eye, he saw the heralds waving to him, puzzled by his long exchange with those who would pay him only scorn and scant regard for his attentions. “Or perhaps you can give the king something other than gold for your princes,” Clarence taunted, “God knows the French court deals in all manner of coin.”

“I am not sure what you have in mind, my Lord,” he said, acknowledging John Herald’s raised hand with a quick shrug. “Come now, why so modest?” continued Clarence off-handedly, glancing around the table, “you have a quick mind and a clever tongue—useful for all manner of purpose.” He hammered the table with his closed fist, instantly drawing the attention of those who had not already turned to watch the exchange. William rose to his feet at the harsh sound, and behind the tall man, he could just catch sight of John haranguing Clarenceux King of Arms over his errant lordling’s behavior, until he had bullied the slender, scholarly herald into relinquishing his seat with a long-suffering sigh, as if asserting his presence could rein in the Machiavellian youth, as though it was not too late to halter the wild horse that had flown its stable. Silent and attentive, Robert was watching him with arms tightly folded, declining an offered cup with a tilt of his head.

“You are too polite, Clarence,” intoned a knight from the fireside with naked malice, his voice a rough echo rising from a deep well, commanding with its disembodied presence, “When the French cannot win by blood and sweat, they waste no time in stooping for the tools of the coward’s trade.” The herald recognized Walter de Ashfield, brawny and pugnacious despite his age, a veteran who had fought for three kings in succession and never once on the losing side. In his black eyes lurked a glittering suspicion, brittle and unyielding as obsidian. He was accompanied by a familiar face, the senior knight from the ship, with whom he shared a master. No longer the ranking voice in the room, Surrey was content to let his comrade speak, acknowledging the herald’s recognition with nothing more than narrowed eyes. “See this royal King of Arms, this so-called Herald,” the man said, rising ponderously from his seat, all eyes on his accusatory finger, “First he is on his knees, pleading for leniency, then immediately he turns about, and he marshals his heralds to strip the battlefield of our rightful spoils.” The knight came around the trestle table, his crimson doublet with its pinpricks of gold lavish beside the herald’s dun and beige traveler’s clothing. Years of combat had solidified him into a brick of a man, all wide lines and right angles, with a faultless complexion of pure stone. “See this Frenchman who speaks to our King in private. As smooth as the serpent what tempted Eve.”

 _What to make of this man?_ Montjoy sighed inwardly, and weathered his condemnations in silence. A knight who is told by his own lord to beware the spy in their midst; He tries as far as he can with his own wit and wisdom to cut out the cancer from within, and that is to be commended; bold, loyal and vigorous, all the best qualities in a fighting man, but as it is he is a pure bred hunting dog, primed for the throat and when the scent of blood rises in his nose, he is immune to reason, he is impervious to wrong, even those that he himself would commit, because the code of chivalry demands, and like a mistress in its allure, it never fails to blind the most honorable of men.

“You archers and men-at-arms, take note,” Ashfield continued, speaking over the clamor, “You may have heard that heralds are not to be molested, but let them too much liberty with their protections, and they will wrap their silver tongues right around your manhoods.” Heads turned from the opposite side of the room, archer-knights who had no reason to love the speaker, his condescension and his patina of entitled superiority. They were by turns curious, suspicious, expressionless, irritated and unimpressed, but they were not credulous, or inclined to take the knight’s word at face value. Montjoy glanced across at them, finding their faces alien to him. Though they were the survivors of many wars, they had never tasted office till their young king found for them places of honor in his upper echelons. Tall, fair Robert with his deadly calm and his swift, sharp responses had an officer’s prepossessing gaze and manner, but the rest were raiders and scrappers and war dogs, keen to brawl and quick to draw knives, defending their hard won latterday ideals with far greater single-minded ferocity than those who had been born to them.

_Here are your warriors for the working-day, dear Henry, all their gayness and their gilt besmirched by jealousy and resentment._

“You must learn to tell friend from foe, if you are to be a worthy member of our brotherhood.” Ashfield’s tone reflected little confidence in his own statement, an unconscious denigration that registered on the faces of the archer-knights like red-flecked shadow passing the snowy grounds, unmistakable to the herald. “These foreign heralds will know you by name and face and coat of arms, but make no mistake, they are not your friends.”

“Since when did you take such an interest in the comings and goings of poor heralds, Ashfield?” Guyenne’s voice was deceptively mild, pitched to penetrate from over the Frenchman’s shoulder as his friend came up behind him, but as Montjoy turned he marked the sharp edge lining the English herald’s icy frown, like the steep plummet off a pleasant mountain path straight into the ragged sea. It was clear he did not intend to let Ashfield’s animosity stand lightly. “When you ceased to mind the safety of our liege, Guyenne King of Arms,” shot back the senior knight with vehemence, “this man is a danger to His royal majesty.” William answered him with a deep, mocking guffaw. “An assassin? A royal King of Arms? Don’t be ridiculous.”  
“You flock about your own like sheep, Herald. Open your eyes to this Judas goat.”  
“How glibly you accuse. Show me your proof yet. A herald speaks to a king, and you are up in arms like some jealous jilted lover?”  
“Call yourself Henry’s own herald? Blind and biased I say, if you need more proof.”

Over their unfriendly conversation, Montjoy heard John whisper to his ear, one firm hand on his shoulder. “Fists will fly in a moment, I promise you. You should leave now.” Richard was there at his shoulder, nodding agreement.  
“And leave you to your brawl?” he asked softly.  
“What use are you?” countered his mentor, not unkindly. “Except to pour more oil on this fire?” He hesitated, considering Ashfield’s hard and hostile regard, searing past Guyenne’s shoulder even as his friend stood in front of him protective. “Go,” John said, pulling him back, “Before you get any more injured. Come back in ten minutes and we’ll have put out all these hotheads.” There was the ring of truth in his words, and genuine concern, but it was his wicked grin that convinced Montjoy to allow Lancaster to take his place at the front of the quickly accruing crowd of contenders. William had effortlessly steered the conversation into an impassioned defense of his own fervent English loyalties as Montjoy merged into the assembled group and one by one sloughed off the attention of Ashfield and Surrey and Clarence, in the milling faces. He was helped by the obscuring protection of the English heralds, and the fact that few others knew enough about the heated argument to mark him as the cause of it, their attention squarely fixed on the bearer of the loudest voice in the rapidly degenerating shouting match.

He had nearly extricated himself from the center of the room when he felt a friendly hand take his elbow, and gave its owner a quizzical glance. “Follow me,” said Robert in an undertone, his eyes flicking about the room with the measured caution of a fighting man, “There is a back way.” Montjoy allowed himself to be guided back through the maze of tables, behind the counter where Robert nodded knowingly to the tender who moved aside without a word, and then through the back door of the inn into the refuse-strewn alley. It was barely as wide as a man’s arm, and drenched in heavy impenetrable shadow, the close packed buildings looming to the left and right disallowing the smallest entry of moonlight into the deep trench dividing them but doing nothing for the smothering cold. The air seemed to congeal in the absolute stillness, broken only sporadically by an especially loud cry from inside, or the surreptitious scurrying feet of vermin through the darkest shadows. Between the street and the drinking house, the herald paused to consider his erstwhile ally, and found the Englishman’s green gaze, in the last glimmers of candlelight that had struggled through smudged windows, clear, direct and unfathomable.

“Why?” he asked simply.  
“Why not?” replied the archer-knight, with the same arch smile he had flashed in the antique afternoon sun, its strangeness amplified by shadow. “My gut tells me you are no danger,” he said, “However that knight may whinge and cry.”  
“Do all fighting men rely so heavily on their gut?” Montjoy asked with a sigh, “it makes life so unpredictable.” The knight shrugged.  
“When a split second will determine if you kill, or are killed, you have no time for thinking things over. And if you’re still alive after the first time, the tenth time, the hundredth time, then you learn to trust your gut with your life.”  
His breath streaming out in a thick cloud, chilling his lungs, Montjoy said mildly, “Better wisdom than I’ve heard from famed scholars, Sir. Perhaps an owl _volant_ for your charge, maintaining an arrow in its talons?”  
“You know best, Herald. Describe me an arms that will strike fear into my enemies.” Montjoy’s soft sad laughter descended into the silence between them.  
“Three lions passant guardant, in pale Or, armed and langued Azure, on a field like blood. Quartered with Azure seme-de-lys.”

He saw confusion on the knight’s face at his half-whispered response, and shaking his head, changed the subject. “Your skill, your calling, your heritage, your faith, all are welcome on your coat of arms. What do you value above all else?” One shoulder against the wall propping himself up comfortably, the Englishman looked up into the sliver of night that capped the narrow way, clear as winter and dusted with stars. “That is a hard question. My name is Robert Bowyer, because my father made bows, and now my elder brother in his place. We went to tournaments to compete, and won many prizes, and laughed at the knights in the joust as they knocked each other senseless. How foolish it all seemed, and now look at me. I am one. What a world.”

“Strange times,” the herald agreed, thinking of Henry at his writing table, and the quick, confident manipulation of his fingers on the stem of the quill; thinking of Henry astride his brother’s prone body, defying all comers with the edge of his sword.

There was a quiet chuckle from the man, but his head was cocked to the right, distracted by the shifting gloom, then in one abrupt movement, he swept Montjoy back against the inn’s metal-banded door, and drew the dagger hanging from his belt. Over his blocking shoulder, Montjoy saw belatedly three men emerge from the darkness that had sheltered them thus far, two and one from each side of the alley. Naked blades shone in their hands, reflecting a cold flame of purpose in their eyes, and their dark clothes were as anonymous as their faces. The irony would have made the herald laugh, but for fear of distracting Robert, he restrained his sudden, mordant humor. There was no challenge, no cry, the attackers simply lunged forward, like a sparring session in the twilight of dawn, there was nothing to be said that could not be said by pure action. The fair-haired knight evaded one blade, deflected the other with a slick shearing sound, his body moving with efficient grace, his expression calm and emotionless. Montjoy ducked out from behind his protection, fielding the advance of the rightmost attacker empty-handed. In wordless tandem, they circled in opposite directions, splitting the attention of the nameless assassins. The narrow space was their saving grace, preventing their attackers from overwhelming them.

Montjoy concentrated on avoiding the blade that darted out towards him in ruthless, staccato strikes. Though facing an unarmed man, his opponent maintained an armslength between them, seemingly wary of closing the distance, and the herald was glad for his caution. He saw a clumsy, overpowering strength behind the man’s actions, a tendency to overestimate the reach of his short thief’s blade. It spoke of familiarity with longer, heavier weapons, and an expensive, well-trained knight, unaccustomed to ambush by lonely backstreets. _A mercenary would have been more effective,_ he reflected, morbidly, detached from the specter of his own death. _A common soldier who dances sure-footed, offhand-empty, and does not plant his feet so heavy with the memory of longsword and painted shield. A man who closes the distance quickly, and puts his blade into the heart without thinking._

Glancing at Robert, he saw such a man, his assailants already bloodied and backing away wary. A man who had charged the field with knife and stake as his quiver emptied, throwing himself against metal-clad knights without fear for their imposing armor. _Fencing in the twilight. I remember._ Montjoy waited for the next reaching swipe from his attacker, and closed with the man in one swift lunge. The knife swept unimpeded through his shirt, drawing blood across his chest as the would-be assassin wrenched it sideways, but in exchange for his pains, he penetrated the man’s innermost defenses. Arrow wound surging in agony, he put his shoulder to the man’s chest and shoved hard, on the backstep sweeping his attacker’s overextended right leg out from under him, sending the Englishman reeling to the ground. He hit the alley’s packed dirt floor with a grunt of surprise, giving the herald a moment’s respite. “Back inside!” Robert shouted, from where he still struggled with the other two men.

Simultaneously, they made their escape; Montjoy wrenching open the door as his opponent pushed himself to his feet, the archer-knight dashing past his attackers and disappearing down one arm of the lightless alleyway at a headlong sprint. In an instant, Montjoy had lost sight of him, and slipped breathlessly back into the comforting warmth of the kitchen, slamming and bolting the door right in the face of the assassin. He had only one quick look at the man full in the light of the doorway as he shut him out, round hazel eyes narrowed in malice, high cheekbones and severely cropped brown hair. A thin mouth twisted in a snarl of thwarted rage. _Wolves_ , Montjoy thought, _wolves in the night_. _You were not wrong, Clarence, but you did not call them to light._

The muffled pounding on the solid oak frame died away in a heartbeat, followed by an interminable silence, during which Montjoy came to notice through a blurring adrenaline haze the wide and startled eyes of several women and boys pinning him with a discomforting silent closeness. They did not ask any questions, so he did not offer any explanation, only dipped his head once and left, following the sounds of a raging din back into the common room. The sight that greeted him battered at his composure with its sheer energetic violence. Englishmen cheerfully laying into one another, archers against knights against sailors against men-at-arms, and embroiled in the very thick of it, the English heralds living up to their wild, ferocious name, giving it as good as they got. Cups smashed into shards against the beams, scattering their sour contents over sodden combatants who roared and swung their fists at their nearest neighbor, long past the stage of distinguishing friend from foe. The only mark of their shared loyalties lay in the fact that no one had yet drawn a weapon, though more than one sported bloody noses and broken teeth and several more laid out unconscious beneath the tables. The innkeeper himself had waded out into the conflict, leaving the counter where Montjoy stood unattended, but with all his prodigious belligerence, his brute force and his furious bellowing he could not hope to calm the roused spirits of fifty drink-fueled knights brawling as if their lives depended on it.

John Herald and William, Guyenne King of Arms had been separated in the seething press, but they were calling merrily to one another over the chaos as they cracked heads and fielded punches with as much bloodthirsty verve as any soldier, and though he could not make out a single word, it seemed very much to the French herald that they were somehow keeping score. There was no chance he would make his way to either through the morass of bodies, and he knew, keenly, attracting attention was not to his benefit. Suddenly at a loss, blinded and deafened by the roiling melee, he did not realize he had been joined in the relative safety behind the counter until a soft, arresting voice spoke right in his ear. “Herald, something tells me you are involved in this.” As his heart sputtered in its even beat and he hesitated to face the speaker, he saw through a thin film of dazed disbelief, Robert with a wide, ecstatic grin, none the worse for wear, throwing open the inn’s front door, giving him a quick conspiratory wink, and charging into the fray with a fearsome battle cry, rallying several of his friends to stand by him. _Carefree is that man upon dry land, but not the poor man all at sea. He runs onto Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis._ Montjoy turned away from the tumult to look straight into the accusing cerulean eyes of England’s king, while behind his back, his men, ignorant of their sovereign’s presence, attacked each other with mindless, exuberant ferocity.

“Your majesty.” he said weakly, flinching as Henry’s arm suddenly shot out to deflect a pitcher soaring towards his head. He winced as it shattered loudly against the wooden casks. England’s king was in a new disguise tonight, pairing the face of a robber with the disarming dress of a common man-at-arms, and for those who had the eye and the attention to detail, the rigid undeniable bearing of Plantagenet dignity. Montjoy could not have placed him in the room, but for his soft, unmistakable voice, revealing his presence to the herald alone. “You’re bleeding,” observed the monarch with disapproval. “You want to come with me.” His flat tone brooked no argument, and they wound their way cautiously around the very edges of the room, and up the stairs into the relative silence of the second floor, where only the loudest, deepest sounds of the fighting filtered through the floorboards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	16. Babylon by Candlelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If your mind is nimble and your heart is light, you can get to the truth by candlelight.

In the spartan room, pitch black, three candles burned, their sinuous forms lingering long on the back of the herald’s eyelids, throwing all else into pallor. Two short, one tall, they burned like crosses on Calvary hill, in the windless gloom throwing up long steady trails of vaporizing essence, giving of themselves with sweet regret, three elfin lances of light holding back shadow; their golden glow meeting silver moonlight like oil and water, never finding common ground. Their pure, ivory bodies, well-formed and free of blemish; the thin and misty smoke that climbed languorously to the rafters; their unwavering radiance in the windless silence, all told the herald of their privileged origins in castle stores, or church cupboards, where someone had spared no expense in their manufacture, and someone had them brought all across town to a dark and dirty room to be lit in secret. His eyes fell on Henry, who had gone straight to the table as he entered, and now tarried there, burning up his vision of the night in that hypnotic display of flame. Three knights forsworn at Southampton, the news when it finally came to Rouen. Three lords of England dispatched at dawn, without delay. _Why light candles for those who wanted you dead?_ God knows those whom they conspired with devoted them not one more thought once they had known of failure. “Close the door, Montjoy,” Henry commanded, his expression all crooked darkness as he picked up the leftmost candle from the table, and brought it over, leaving the accoutrements of his disguise abandoned on the table. All over him, the rich fragrance of wine lay thick and lavish over a bed of deep incense and red roasting meat, and when the herald closed his eyes, he could imagine a modern day Bacchus before him, in his gown of violet and gold, crowned in sweet laurel. The decadent personification of the feast, leading a triumph of trumpet-bearing satyrs and nymphs with swaying step, but Henry’s expression in the gloom was all dark divine thunder, the sky in his eyes stormy as he surveyed the herald’s figure outlined in amber and moonlight.

“What am I to do with you, Montjoy? You have Reynard’s nose for trouble,” Henry sighed, leaning forward to examine the herald’s newest wound with the candle held high. From the slightest quaver of his hand, his unconditioned speech, Montjoy thought the king was none the better for the late hour and the strong drink, and falling like a leaf, pinwheeling, through the autumn of his emotions, he gave Montjoy cause for tentative alarm. A note of frank reproach in the king’s lament rang true to the herald’s ear, as was the concern that touched his features and set his jaw. In the wan circle of candlelight, how close the world had suddenly become, and how simple, narrowing down to those lines of light that was Henry’s face and hands moving in their determined course before him, and those lines of light that was his shoulders, his neck, his eyes, for they were the only two beings in an endless universe of darkness, attracting each other through their mere existence. Futile protests died unuttered in his throat when the king took one handful of his shirt and tugged it upwards, though whether they were suffocated by the gloom of the new shrunken world, or whether they were beaten to the punch by bewilderment he could not know, but whatever the cause he responded instinctively by raising his arms, allowing Henry to draw the garment over his head, exposing blood and bandages both to the quicksilver light. “Noble king, I swear to thee,” he said, breathing heavily as the king leaned in to inspect the cut across his chest, “I did not find this trouble, though it found me.”

With a wordless, meaningful glance, Henry pushed the candle into Montjoy’s left hand, and arranged its position to his liking, so that the herald was forced to accommodate the king’s near embrace, the rhythm of his breath on chilled skin, near motionless. Then, Henry was free with two hands to trace the edge of the cut with his fingers, examining its depth, its quality with his light touch, as practiced as a master physician and not without disarming gentleness. “The edge is smooth,” he finally pronounced, and he tore two wide strips off the edge of his fine linen shirt with alacrity. “A hasty slice made by a sharp weapon,” he continued idly, all the time considering the herald’s expression as he proceeded to bind up the wound with quick, sure strokes, “This trouble is well-armed, and of fell intent.” He tugged the wrappings tight, and immediately the pale material darkened where it met the weeping line, and the knot softened and settled, but no more blood escaped its careful bounds. Henry surveyed his handiwork appraisingly, the herald’s shirt he had haphazardly let fall to the floor. In the heavy shadow, Montjoy could not see where it was.

Distracted by the draft caressing his naked skin, drawing goose bumps all up and down his arms, and the occasional nervous twitch as Henry’s hand brushed against his exposed shoulder, Montjoy shifted uncomfortably beneath the king’s ministrations, and answered to his musings without thinking twice, “Three men in dark unmarked clothes attacking without warning. They were armed like rogues but they fought like knights, and had not Sir Robert defended me I would not have left that back street alive.” As soon as he had spoken, he would have given up his bare skin to take it all back, because there was sadness and chagrin ensconced in its high place behind Henry’s anger, up where icy winds howled long ballads of loss and distraction, and the sun was overrun by clouds, the herald could see the king burned hot and cold at once, eyes flashing. “They would have killed you over nothing,” he seethed, a thunder coming over his face, the storm breaking over tender pastures, lashing at the grass, “Bloody murderers. Who were they? Who sent them?” Montjoy had seen only the one attacker, and his youthful, snarling face had been a stranger’s, so the herald carefully lowered the candle he held back to the table top, long fingers agile, and gentle as he nudged it forward to rejoin the others. The sudden darkness between them yawned wide, but the brilliance of the king, his presence impacting, was Henry’s radiating warmth, that everlasting energy, that heady scent, the golden outline of his hair, as if he wore a lighted crown. The king waited out his silence with a steady, patient stare. “Ysengrim,” Montjoy said finally, watching the tall flame of the tallest candle hunch and sputter as melted wax stirred from its idle pool and spotted the wick. He dared not look up as he gave his answer, but the desire to avert any ruinous witch-hunt in his name compelled him to be facetious, and his mind raced for something diverting to say as Henry mulled over the single name. “Ysengrim,” Henry repeated, searching the herald’s eyes, his lips moving languorously over the foreign sounds.

“Ysengrim loyal and true,” Montjoy continued in all sincerity, his right hand tacitly going to grip his wounded shoulder as it ached and whined a torment, “Ysengrim who would kill for you.” Outside the window, a high and carrying shriek careened up into the night, briefly drawing both their attentions to the streetward window as they waited momentarily for a chaser that never came, then Henry barked a short, derisive laugh. “Whom do you defend with your silence, herald? Those who would kill you?” Montjoy looked up suddenly, wide eyes filled with melancholy and gestured to the three candles reunited. ‘Whom do you honor with these candles, your Majesty?’ The second question hung in the air, unspoken but great and heavy and apparent like massive zweihanders sprouting over a battlefield of smaller swords, knitting Henry’s brow together and thinning his lips. _Those who would kill you?_

“Does anything escape your eye, Montjoy?” he asked as he turned away in mock disgust, eyeing the candles like a vision of the Savior with his arms outspread, drenched in a blistering honeyed sun. “Is it so apparent that these are my candles?” All around the room it seemed like ghostly spectres shifted and stirred, and as silently and unobtrusively as he could, Montjoy shivered. “What do you know of these?” Henry was curious, but he was also angry, though not at the herald in particular, rather, undirected rage, searching for a target, searching for the dead. It seemed to the herald that he had taken a stab in the dark, and it had struck deep into the heart of Henry’s restlessness, the burning thorny tree that treachery grew everywhere it touched. What could he say to quench the bitterness burning up that undeserving heart? The truth was a medicine as bitter as the original blight.

“They were cowards,” he said at last. “Weak knights who dared not stand beside their young king in battle. Fearful knights petrified by French might.” Montjoy’s quiet statement seemed like news to Henry, striking the young king square upon his rage. “Is that so,” said Henry, through gritted teeth. Though his words were polished steel and his eyes a blazing furnace tempering them in seething oil, his face was plunged into a deadly calm. “Did they think they would be safer under Edmund? Did they think they would have wealth and power and peace to enjoy it?” The herald remembered the Dauphin’s white, even teeth, exposed for the blink of an eye in a cruel smile, when he had heard how the king of England cut down three before he had even left his country. He had wanted to send the herald with a gloating message to enrage England, but his father had looked down his nose and told the prince to be silent. “Wealth in abundance, from deposing one king,” said the herald quietly, “Power in abundance, from seating the next. They were traitors, unworthy of your remembrance. They were cowards, undone by their own cowardice.” The bleak certainty of his condemnation turned Henry’s head. “How did you witness their cowardice?”, he asked, the calm of black ice in his voice, beneath which the predator lurks, where it hunts the unwary; and the stillness of the old forests, where things still roam from the days of old gods and blood magic, things unnamed and unspeakable. “How are you certain?” Montjoy felt the king’s question pass over him like a chill, like the shadow of the angel of God, and when he did not reply, Henry pressed him with rough command. “Did they approach you with their poison? Did they give you their letters for your prince?”

When still Montjoy was mute and his gaze sought to evade the king’s burning stare, Henry’s eyes narrowed, and he thought he knew what conflict bound the herald’s tongue. “Or did you approach them, knowing they would turn? Seeing their weakness in your eye so perceptive?” In a cold rage, he gripped the herald’s arm and wrenched it around so that Montjoy was forced to meet his grim, accusing stare. The herald offered no resistance, and raised mild eyes, expressionless, to meet the king’s ire; those that had seen lords and executioners up in arms, those that had met the prince and the torturer with equal calm. In their wordless selfless stillness, Henry found no satisfaction. “Said you to the Dauphin,” he growled, “I have found three English fools. They would sell their king for silver, and here is their letter to enquire if we are buying. As players they are convincing, I think they have some chance of success.” Montjoy remembered his assessment then; Henry’s venomous version not so far from his own. _Cowards_ , he had thought, judging them poorly for their treachery, three actors with little chance of success he had said to his crown prince, but the Dauphin had judged the venture itself of great reward and little risk, and he had been given a letter unsigned to deliver, promising all the fool’s gold in the world. In the end, there had been no evidence remaining, no written proofs beyond the affidavits of traitors, and thereby no formal admission of guilt from the French crown, but Henry’s accusation brought back the memory of being berated by the Dauphin for associating the court with forsworn knights, and worse, fools, the candle suffering both ends of its poor transaction with the flame.

“Am I now not fox but serpent, sent to turn men’s hearts?” he asked thoughtfully, without a trace of reproach or indignation. _What makes you rage so, Henry Plantagenet? Where from, this sudden ire? Is it that your men are so easily turned, or is it that I might have done the turning? Or both? Either way, you are helpless—Either way you are injured. Will it soothe the hurt, to make them all your own?_

“Since thou hath asked, so I answer. It was none of my doing. I am just a messenger for my King and master. And to my great shame, I have said more to thee, King of England, than I have him. You may take me as your culprit, if you need one to blame. You may take me for punishment, if it will ease your heartache.”

Just as Henry opened his mouth to speak it seemed the words died on his lips, barely formed, and with ever the slightest ache of shame he released the herald’s arm and turned away. “Reynard, you have me all confused,” he sighed, rubbing his brow, “If you were mine, it would be simple yet.” _Did thou forget?_ The herald shrugged, as the storm seemed to pass him by, leaving only exhaustion in its wake, and the lashing grass with its tenacious roots stayed fixed to the ground. His gaze fell on the tallest candle, the height of its flame almost the length of a child’s thumb, tenuously extending into the night its ephemeral presence, proclaiming a single _I_ , and the herald held out a palm to test the heat of its flame, only snatching it away when the pain became greater than those others lodged into his flesh. “He had argued for your Majesty’s life,” Montjoy remembered quietly, “and held it sacred and untouchable where others would have been more practical.” Henry dug his nails into the pocked wood of the table and grimaced as if bitten by a serpent, whose vinegary poison now seared in every vein. “Speak no more of him,” he said tonelessly, “to his traitor’s end he went, without a word. To his traitor’s end deserving.”

Montjoy was only too willing to comply with the demand, fighting back the guilty feeling that he had outstepped what lissome, shifting boundaries still existed between him and the Plantagenet king of all England. He had succeeded in diverting the king’s attention, only to find himself breaking hostile new ground, and once again, playing the panflute to the sorrow of the conqueror, and setting it dancing in Henry’s eyes. _A king should not be hurt like a mortal man, nor love, like a mortal man, but experience something closer to divine_ , thought the herald, _How strenuous a burden for a mortal man to bear, how impossible a burden, turning every wound more painful, making every love more intense._ He felt the thinness of Henry’s voice, like gray twilight, as the king murmured, softer, “Now I see—now I understand, he was never mine.” As he turned away, his cheek glistened in the travelling light, and Montjoy hesitated a long, terrifying moment before he ventured his tentative affirmation.

“Neither am I.”

The candelight wavered at the behest of a deeply exhaled breath, setting shadow king and silhouette herald quivering on the far wall. “I know,” Henry replied, coming closer, eyes clearing swift as a summer’s sky, the sun at noon searing through the soft darkness at the center. “For now,” he whispered, leaning in, his soft touch exploring briefly the skin of the neck where he had laid a naked blade, only hours before, his voice full of promise. “Lion King, though a man may betray for the sake of thee,” Montjoy said, still and quiet as a glacier, “How could thou trust him ever after? He has forsaken his master, and may thee.” Henry smiled.

“You are no traitor,” he said confidently.  
“Yet you would make me one?’ Montjoy challenged, and Henry smiled the wider, and asked his question gently.  
“Would you become one for me?”

There the herald foundered, and took too long to respond. Too many heartbeats turning left into right and black into white in his mind, a twilight frenzy from which he escaped only with difficulty, and coming upon the answer, stumbled out “No,” weakly, turning his back so Henry could not see the struggle he had fought for the one hard-won word. “Not for any man,” he said, bowing his head, lines of concentration appearing as he took command of his face, only to lose it in the very next instant when, taking him by gasped surprise, Henry embraced him from behind, strong arms gentle on his wounded body, enfolding him in a warmth that burned pleasurably, and whispering into his ear. “Would you risk your life for me?” And he knew Henry knew the question was moot and asked it of him anyway, and the paradox of it made him shake uncontrollably, however he tried to stifle it, he knew every tremble, every twitch would give the king the answer he desired in as indisputable a terms as Henry could have wanted, making the young king smile as he did now, as Montjoy could feel searing at the side of his cheek, radiant like a new sun and as untarnished. “No,” he whispered, for the sake of it, barely remembering the word. His hands were weak on the king’s clasped grip, trying to undo his hold on him, but his own body, craving warmth, craving heat, betrayed him, and his muscles lost their will to fight, nor did it help that Henry, just below the threshold of words was muttering soothing sounds into his ear, so near he could sense each movement of the lip in the sensuous Bacchic incantation, calming the wild beasts of the field with sweet music. The air was suffocating, the shadow sere and binding, the beating of his own heart painful to contain and all along filling the pathways of his mind with fragrant smoke, the constant cloying feeling he was setting foot on Babylon’s road, the moment he could not return from; the path that could only end in loss and heartache, as the fabled city disappeared into sand and mist and myth. There was no sign of hesitation from the king, so glib it was as if he had been preparing for the line all his life. “Reynard, I thought you never tell a lie,” Henry whispered tenderly, inclining his head in a gently reproving manner, and with a sigh, the herald offered up his deception, shoulders sinking in dismay. “Then _yes_ ,” he whispered, softly, eyes closed so the harsh glare of his own admission did not blind him too badly with its bare light, “Yes, I would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 4


	17. Small Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Small things. Small consequences.

By the first light of dawn came the scent of the sea, and a memory of frost and storm. On creaking timbers, he could hear the rhythm of his heart cut through the howling heaven’s noise as they held fast to each other in the darkness of the valley of the waves, and he found himself sweating despite the cold, the damp walls of the small hospital room growing close as iron bars, and as confining. In his tunic of soft wool and his worn shirt, loosely undone at the neck, the herald shivered with that first cool touch of the morning, and felt emptied as he exhaled. Like a bell ringing with hollow sound. _The new day is born_ , he thought, gathering up the dark cloak that had cocooned him during his lonely vigil on the stone seat,  _and with it the certainty that the night had been no fantasy_. This is a cloak, he told himself, fingers clenched in its heavy folds, shaking his head to dislodge fatigue. This, the rushes of the ground and this, the smell of salt and seawater, washing away the night’s sorceries.  _This, the waking world._  Fastening the cloak about his shoulders with a pin of hammered iron, he left the room empty-handed, leaving nothing behind but the watery silhouette of a star he had traced onto the window with an absent-minded finger, and a bed pristine and unslept in.

*

 _I should not say, but I burn to. I dare not speak, but how I yearn to._ Three candle flames frozen in an obsidian silence. The fireglass refracts fantastic shadows. A lumpen man upon the far wall, with two heads and four arms, perfectly still, perfectly silent. _Do not speak, so the crystal does not shatter. Do not move, so the moment is ever after. Hold it, just hold it a moment longer. Just for forever._

*

The hallways of the hospital proper were deserted, its temporary tenants sleeping off a long night spent in festive excess, but the chapel of St Julien’s was filled with rows of solemn brothers and sisters. He was late for the morning office, its opening verse completing, but no one raised their bowed heads at his quiet entry, and Father Jean, officiating, glanced over him with some surprise. The herald stood silent by the back corner, amongst the standing stones, the pillars that held up the high ceiling, the etchings of names on rough stone walls, and allowed the swelling hymn to wash over him, harmonious and cleansing. The paved floor had been swept clean and sprinkled with herbs and crushed underfoot they exuded a luminous smell, enveloping the herald in comforting perfume. Long white candles burned in their slender stands as tall as a man, all the way down to the altar, streaking the arches beneath which they stood with sooty fire. At the end of the aisle, a simple wooden crucifix in a stand of silver, on a high table covered by a snow white cloth embroidered with gold, and the dawn through the eastern windows dashed them all in dancing lights of sapphire and crimson and rose. _Your kingdom come._

The priest’s voice was even and soothing as he read the morning psalm, but Montjoy allowed the ponderous Latin words to slip by unheard, lending none of his spirit to the praise. Instead, with his eyes closed, he saw an image of Henry, on the morning of his proving. In his armor and his surcoat quartered, he kneels at the head of a ragged band, and making a blessing, places a piece of the earth into his mouth to seal it. The action that ripples back through the soldiers, so each one receives his God-given blessing, his God-given might. Each one receives Henry’s protection. He has saved them from certain death _._

*

His first thought in the silence is  _God_. _Dearest Lord._ It is a prayer, but it has no words. His mouth is moving, but there is no sound. They speak the language of the body, its warmth and its rhythms, more eloquent than the censer’s swinging, more plangent than the lyre’s cry. I have not known heartache, until now, through you. I have not been lost to temptation, until now, by you. Nor have I felt sweetness, nor sorrow, until now, _for you_. This is the making of things, the forging in a new, sharp shape. Return me to the comforts of duty, where I excel. Return me to the oblivion of living from day to day without the hopeless hope that the next one will contain the impossible. The next thought brings his mind to its knees, the next breath catches in his throat. _When shall I awaken to find the next day is not worth living? What shall the waking world be, but sand and ashes?_

*

_Pater Noster._

Dutifully, he mouthed the Lord’s prayer alongside the massed voice of the congregation. He felt Jean’s gaze linger on him, wondering, and he shrugged in answer. By candlelight, he had received revelation, and it had not come from the Lord. By the dawning sun, his thoughts now wandered skittish, skirting taboo, yet always returning.

_Your will be done._

What does the man who feels no fear, who has no danger menace him, pray for? Smallfolk pray for peace, for a good harvest and a warm winter. Merchants pray for fair winds and calm seas. The aging king looks to his sons, praying them strength, health and wisdom, to hold the country together.

_Forgive us our sins._

What does the herald pray for? That his next ride shall not end in disaster. That his horse shall not throw a shoe, and his voice does not waver. _Small things._ He did not feel a presence, as some men swore, nor saw light beyond the rising sun, or heard sounds beyond the window panes. Nothing came to him then but the lingering sense of smallness within the white stone walls, under the high timber ceiling, as of the pebble on the bed of the stream, insignificant to the churning flow above it.

_Lead us not into temptation._

*

 _But_ , is the word. Feared like fire. The hammer striking the nail, the sparks catching the tinder. _Thou shall not lie._ I would die for you.  _But._  He finds the threads that bind are stronger than he could have imagined, the weave of the tapestry is close and fine, and he cannot leave his place in the tableaux. The warp fixes him, the weft colors him. The walls of castles keep men in, but the stories of the tapestries imprison them everywhere.  _But._  He remembers three white candles burning in the small stone chapel where his father had spent his last days, one for each of the loves he had lost, each of the steps the old man had taken towards a world of grey ashes, until he could no longer see the way home. _But_. He remembers home. Home is in low fields of deep bruised purple, swaying in the breeze, and the drone of bees under the brilliant summer’s sun. Home is crystal clear winters, light frost crackling like spun sugar over the mound of an imperial pastry. Home is singing monks in hilltop monasteries, and pious abbots beneath round, muscular vaults, their soft hands turning old brittle pages. Home is racing good horses across the flat land table whilst the afternoon glow turned the surface of the lake to molten gold. The memory is too real to be real. “But—” _I could not live for you._

*

Their mandated service completed, the lay brethren filed past him, some with brief nods of recognition and greeting that he answered in kind. When the last had shut the door behind him, Montjoy made his way down the emptied aisle, footsteps loud in the new silence. “This is a surprise,” Jean said with a grin, as he tidied the altar, “but not an unwelcome one.” The herald glanced from the priest’s smiling face to the silver candle holders in his hands, then to the crucifix that occupied the table’s center, and could not return his simple smile.

“It was not so long ago I came in here to profane His name,” Montjoy said emotionlessly, “Not so long ago I smashed that crucifix on the ground, cursing Him as I did.”  
“It was ten years ago,” Jean replied, setting down the candlesticks on either side of the cross. “It has been a long time.”  
“Do you think He has forgiven me?” asked the herald, looking away. The question came quickly, and surprised the priest. It surprised him as well. Humbly, on his knees, he had asked for forgiveness that dark night, but he had asked it of this priest, this man warm with understanding. He had not asked of God, nor had he tasted His wrath. He had not feared its striking. _Now His hand comes for me. His champion comes. Oh Lord, Lead me not into temptation._  
“Have you forgiven yourself?”  
“Père,” he said, once more tasting the bitter anger that rose so swift, so fresh from memory. “Part of me does not regret renouncing Him. I know well, as does He.” With a calm smile, Father Jean extended both hands, palms up.   
“What did you promise me?” he asked. The herald sighed, like a small child scolded, yet unrepentant, seeking greater fairness with pouting desperate severity. He placed his hands in Jean’s, and said, “I promised not to cast blame. Not on God, nor on myself. Not on any man.”  
“And?”  
“I promised to seek Him,” he said reluctantly. “To ask for His message.”  
“Have you asked?” The question frustrated the herald, his hands clenching unconsciously, the morning light through the eastern window gathering heat in its glare, casting the Father’s face in shadow.    
“Does He answer?”  
“You’ve heard something, or you would not be here. What was it?”  
“A temptation,” said the herald. A brief, intense vision rose and fell unbidden. Henry, all in grey damask, watching the sunrise at the window of his bedchamber, arms folded across his chest, head leaning on the cold stone wall. The way the light gilded one face, he knew, and the way the shadow of stone contoured the other, hiding hooded eyes solemn and thoughtful. “Full of sin and forbidden.”  
“Life is full of base temptation. What makes this His?”  
“His beloved champion,” Montjoy whispered, daring to raise his eyes to meet his priest’s. “The action of His hand.”  
“The Lord is our Shepherd,” said the priest solemnly, taking him at his word. “It is our nature to wander lost, to go astray, and always, He brings us back to Him.”  
“What?” Montjoy shook his head, disbelieving, “No, this is irredeemable, that much is clear. This is no salvation.”  
“Jacques,” said the priest, bringing their hands together, clasped for prayer. “God did not send a champion to lead you astray. If you think he walks with God, follow him.”

_Follow him?_

*

 _Do not embrace me._ It hurts because I cannot do the same. It is a choice, but it is also obligation. It is a living in a world I know.

“I am wrong. I am lost.” The lumpen man is split, falling into parts with destructive force. The candle flames waver. “You are not lost with me.” He is certain, so certain.

“My master—My _king_ —” The herald is melancholic in the grey shades of his whispers. Henry takes but a heartbeat to answer, undeniable hands pulling the herald close again. “He commands you. Come here.” Montjoy is shaking his head with a soft lop-sided smile. _I knew you would say that._ “Do you deny me?” His skin is prickling; they are close enough to render the question ridiculous, but he answers anyway.

“I do.”

 _With all my heart, I do. Well, maybe not all._ Mine the calling of my father’s father and the country he was born in, the king he served. The country he would remember, the unbroken House lineage he had learnt as a child. Voice of kings, gatekeeper of honor, watcher in the wings. His father’s words are ringing in his ears, heavy as hands raised in anger. How dare you, stupid child, straying, betraying. The herald who cannot remember his lord when he travels to distant lands is lost, forsaken.

“I shall be your lawful king.” The herald is speechless, and Henry is pleased by the effect his words has. He holds Montjoy’s hands tightly. “I shall be your king as rightfully as your heart’s desire. This I _promise_.”

*

“How will I know for sure?”  
“No man knows for sure.” Jean gave him a regretful smile, “His plan, not ours. Yet, do not fret so. The shepherd does not blame the sheep for straying. No man is always right. If you err, he will forgive. You only have to ask, and He will forgive.”  
“I understand.” _That is your message_ , lifting the heavy yoke of honor and duty, freeing the chained oxen from the straight furrows of its destined path. What does it matter if the single ox strays, if the single believer doubts? Small things, little affecting the movement of the whole world as it moves to Your direction.  _Small things. Small consequences._    
“Pray with me.”

In silence, they bowed their heads together, and just as he felt his restless worry begin to still, the door at the end of the aisle crashed open, revealing John Herald, sheepish at his own undue strength as the boom rattled down the aisle and caused Montjoy to jump at the sound. “What is this?” shouted the man through the doorway, “a pious man made from a Sunday worshiper? Miracles do happen.” The suddenness of his entrance threw the French herald, so for a heartbeat he could only stare at the strange man in the open doorway, pinned to the nave of stone in which he stood, half turned, half bewildered, shattering the serenity he had just obtained. _A bearded man, a John the Baptist, John the prophet, John the herald of something sacred._ Then the waking world came rushing back to him, and he realized how the light had climbed while they had talked, and the stream had flowed above the stone, all the way to the sea.  _Small things._

“Sorry Father,” said John affably as he took in the priest’s reproachful glare, “Duty calls.”  
“Does duty have to be so loud?” Jean groused, releasing Montjoy’s hands to finish gathering his books. In a single glance, Montjoy took in the English herald’s impeccable formal attire, the glint in his eyes and the ridiculous hat on his head, and asked softly, “England rides so soon?” A wide, ferocious grin answered him with certainty. Despite the night of revelry, John’s enthusiasm was as thoroughly engulfing as ever, and tiring for the unrested Frenchman to behold. “Just heralds for now.”  
Penitently, John took the elderly Frenchman’s burden of books and accoutrements unasked. “Duty or not,” the priest interjected, addressing Montjoy as he swept briskly around the altar, “ _You_ will not be leaving before I change those dressings.”

They followed him without complaint, knowing better than to argue. “Shall you ride with us or have you decided to exchange the baton for the cloth?” John made another apologetic gesture as he belatedly realized who they walked with, but Jean’s evil eye was jaded from long familiarity with the English herald.  
“Since you have come all this way to find me, I will ride,” Montjoy said with a wan smile.  
“John, tell him to rest,” Jean reproached.  
“We are neither one King of France,” said John to the frowning priest, “He will not listen.”  
Montjoy snorted with amusement at his theatrical dismay.  
“He has had a poor teacher, and education,” said Jean.  
“On the contrary,” Lancaster herald said airily, “What is not to like about such dutiful devotion? Perhaps you would allow me to claim the slightest credit?”  
“Of course, my dearest tutor, what more would you like to lay claim to?” John laughed aloud, and his sidelong wink was deeply mischievous.

*

Down the threadbare hallway with its creaking floorboards so betraying, someone is calling his name. An Englishman, with an anxious English lilt. _Lancaster_ , he thinks, his brawl concluded, ascending the stairs with a stumbling heavy step. _John, where hence those days you told me what to do? What to say and where to look?_ He looks up from their hands clasped so tight into the eyes of England’s king, but Henry ignores the distant sound. He does not relinquish his grip.  

 _Trust me, you say. On my word alone, be mine—you say. How can I?_  The herald cannot speak for holding his breath, and the soundlessness of it is too loud in the room of still air. The sounds of melee have spilled out into the street below, and rising from the dirt and broken stone, wafts through the shuttered windows in indistinguishable scattered cries. Henry holds him closer than he should, and the old siren song of guilt is buried beneath the raged howling of his inclination to take the promise for what it is, and for once, he silences the voices in his head, and counts the heartbeats that fall in time, soft as snow. Counts each one dearly, each one priceless. 

*

John sucked in a deep, disbelieving breath as Montjoy allowed the priest to remove his bandages, the true extent of his injuries revealed for both men. The Valois herald made a tired gesture, as if to stem the tide of his questions, but it was a futile effort.

“What happened?” John demanded.  
“You heard some report?” asked Montjoy, one eyebrow raised. He nodded as Father Jean showed him a vial of colorless strong-smelling spirit, and did not exclaim to the agonizing burn that streamed down his shoulder and back.  
“I heard of a herald riding into Rouen and falling dead from his horse.”  
“Ambush in the woods. A dozen crossbowmen, each taking a single shot. They bore no device, and disappeared without giving chase.”  
“Ambush,” hissed the Englishman, inspecting the arrow wound. “Foul treachery, prepared before even the battle’s end. Who dares ambush a royal herald?”  
“Your guess is as good as mine.”  
“And yet you told William it was robbers?”  
“Who else shall I blame without evidence?”

John frowned at his blithe shrug, and took one arm firmly. “What of this? These are no marks of crossbows.”  
“If you must know,” Montjoy sighed, “I told the good Duke of Burgundy his brothers went gasping to their deaths on English knives, no better than the next common man. With his closest kin new interred in shallow graves, I accused him of treason and breaking treaty. Small wonder he was of a mind to take the insult personally.”  
“My God, who sends the kinslayer such a message?” John asked darkly, “The Dauphin?”  
“I trust you will keep this to yourself,” Montjoy said, nodding, “This news cannot reach Henry. Upon my promise.” _He does not need it from my lips, he has seen it written on my skin._ Hitherto silent, the priest tapped him lightly on the shoulder, instantly drawing his attention.  
“Worry about _this_ , Herald, not your master’s pride.”  
“What can I do about this? Except lean on your expertise?” As Jean touched one inquisitive finger to the cut he had received in the night, he shook his head imperceptibly. The physician had in his other hand a ragged strip of fine blood-stained linen, patently not from the herald’s own clothing, and the connection was too simple, the conclusion too suspicious not to draw. So he shook his head beseeching, when John was not looking, and sighing, Jean slipped the strip into his hand so knowingly. He closed his fingers over it, and tried not to think of its provenance.  
“Rest in bed?” Jean said archly.  
“I cannot promise,” he said, laughing softly.  
“Perhaps I could tell you about the time John set his beard on fire?” the priest proposed.  
“On second thought—” Montjoy offered his hand for a deal, and hastily, John pushed it down.  
“High time we left, Father,” said the English herald over Montjoy’s quiet protest, “ _I_ will make sure he gets his rest.”

“Thank you,” Montjoy said as he stood up, drawing down his sleeves and clasping the physician on both arms. On both cheeks, he kissed him solemnly. “I will see you in a few days.”  
“Remember what you promised,” said the priest in an undertone, pressing into his hand a roll of fresh clean bandages and a filled vial.  
“I remember,” he said sadly. _I listen, and hear nothing over the beating of my starving heart._

*

In the cool iron light, freshly colorless, invigorating, they went by the main street directly to the castle gates. The mood of the town was subdued after the long, loud night, and those few who stirred went about their business blurry-eyed and blinking.

“I asked William about the crossing storm,” John said, prompting him with raised eyebrows.  
“What did he say?”  
“You first.” The Englishman shot him a look that was both sympathetic and sternly expectant.  
“I will tell you I did save that Englishman,” Montjoy said, glancing to the waterside, where by the place of honor, Henry’s ship lingered, though the proud pennants it flew had been folded and kept away. The occasional sailor’s head bobbed visible over its high rails, and its furled sails yearned fitfully for flapping release in the gentle dawn breeze. “In the midst of the storm I had followed Henry onto the deck.”  
“Henry of Monmouth?” John asked, incredulous. “Henry, King of all England? Why in God’s name was he on the deck?”  
“God’s name indeed, he was screaming it into the teeth of the storm.” _Will it surprise you to learn your young king is not without his doubts? Against the crack of lightning, I see him. Over the crash of thunder, I see him. He looks up into the stormy sky for some divine salvation._  “We saw the man fall into the sea unconscious.” He hesitated, considering a memory more felt than seen, animal and instinctive, in a language of numb helpless need. “So I went after him.”  
“With your wounds, you could easily have died alongside him,” John reproached.  
“Would you prefer it had been your king?” Montjoy asked, meeting his gaze with challenge.  
“Oh _Henry_ ,” breathed the Englishman with a wide smile of amazement as he arrived at awed understanding. “Somehow he has made an admirer out of you, hasn’t he? If he had not buried ten thousand Frenchmen at Agincourt, I would not be so surprised. As it stands— I can hardly believe it.”  
“You may believe what you want. I deny it,” he said severely. _Even to you, I deny it._  
“You think denying the truth makes it any less true?” His erstwhile mentor chuckled and shook his head. “I am a poor teacher after all.”  
“Your turn, teacher mine. What shall I tell Guyenne King of Arms?”

The question gave John pause. He accorded the English King of Arms due respect, and loyalty beneath the same master, but it paled before the intense protective aegis he felt for his pupil, French or not, enemy or not. “If you tell him you jumped into the sea for Henry,” he said finally, “He will not hesitate to use such knowledge to his own advantage.”  
“I thought as much,” Montjoy murmured.  
“But if you do not satisfy his curiosity, he will dig away at it endlessly.” John ran a hand through his hair and laid it gingerly on Montjoy’s shoulder. “Did you convince the Archbishop, like he asked?”  
“I did.”  
“Ah, then tell him the question is settled.”  
“Perhaps. Worth a try.” 

The courtyard had bloomed into a seething plot of activity, growing a tumultuous mess of men and horses and flapping flags with incredible speed. “Who is in charge of this madness?” Montjoy muttered, skirting the most nervous of the milling horses as they champed and kicked and shied to the bustling activity around them. Squires, stewards and stableboys were underfoot, jingling as they went with tack and flag twine and trumpets alike, peppering the salt air with their vigorous curses as they ducked and weaved through the narrowest breathless spaces in the crowd. “Who do you think?” John replied, nodding towards the castle door proper, where Montjoy saw William King of Arms submerged in a cluster of gaily attired heralds and pursuivants, for all the world an artist marshaling living color onto his canvas of sand as he sent groups of garish splendor this way and that with forceful gestures of his arm.

“I think I shall meet you on the road,” said Montjoy thoughtfully as he surveyed the latitude of pomp and ceremony. “Will you ride fast or slow?”  
“With this great heaving group of fools?” John waved his hands about the assembly with frank irritation. “We’ll be lucky to reach Eltham before the King— Doubtless you’ll find us about two steps out of that gate by the time you are ready.”  
“Two steps it is then.” They parted with a shared laugh, the Englishman at once bellowing across the courtyard with thunderous force. “Hey, Richard!” He plowed off in the direction of the English officer, parting the tangle of bodies before him with unstoppable force. Watching his noisy progress with some horror, Montjoy took a more circuitous route to the stables. Absent of responsibility, he could wait out the laborious formal departure of the English heraldry, and make his own way far more easily.

*

She crunched the shrunken flesh of the wintered apple between strong square teeth, and flicked her tail contentedly, one eye fixed on the rising sun. It was in lofty castles and verdant palace fields that she felt the most at home, born and bred a thing of the king, with the lithe imperial lines to show for it. “What a pretty thing you are, my dear,” he whispered to her ear, “Lucky for I, you are not welcome to his gilded eye.” The herald worked meticulously down her neck and across her broad back, a glossy sheen spreading in his wake like the rippling of smooth oil over calm mirrored water. “Though you are certainly welcome to mine.” She stamped her approval, and sucked in the dawn with heaving breast, eager to run, eager to race, but Hugo, the stablemaster shook his head impatiently in response to the herald’s query.  The harried Englishman was up earlier than his wont, marshaling a dozen impertinent boys in frantic preparation for the departure of the king and his entourage, let alone Henry’s heralds and all their associated hangers-on. All his usual good humor trampled beneath the hundred milling hooves tearing up the courtyard interior, he groused bad-temperedly to the herald’s sympathetic ear.

Who knew when the lords and ladies would rise, and content themselves to ride? Who knew, the effects of strong sweet wine and honey mead and dancing away the night on king’s time, to their delicate sensitivities? He complained at length about their ornate livery, their feathers and their embroidered caparisons, impractical and time-consuming to harness. He tore out his hair counting and re-counting the fine horseflesh that had come as Henry’s spoils, knowing the watchful eye of the king did not disdain such details, and all the while the herald nodded. Too quickly, his gaze flicked up to the main keep, up to the windows, and he forced them away again. The king was awake, he knew instinctively, thinking those quick thoughts that moved behind veiled eyes of blue. All his frustrations temporarily vented, Hugo shooed him away again, and Montjoy left him to his anxious muttering.

Horses of all colors Henry had, sand and dun and dapple grey, silver as ghosts in the moonlit twilight, and their dark shadows, roan and bay and black as night, their lines pure as ancient wine. A great herd had come across the sea with the king, filling his stables to bursting. Montjoy walked amongst them, and counted them, and spoke softly in French and German and Provencal, turning their heads as he went. More than one in four answered his whispers with attentiveness. They had not had masters from the English isles, and reached out with soft lips to an old remembered sound. To each of these, he offered a token, half of an apple, a handful of oats, or corn or bran, and settled them with the language of their former riders. “The weather is bad,” he sighed to each one, “and the English are terrible horsemen,” he lamented. “But you will not face the storm of steel that falls from the sky. Give thanks. You will not face the shafts as long as a man’s arm, piercing skin and smashing bone and taking lives. Give thanks... Give thanks...” 

 _How many of you will carry knights? How many will pull cannonshot? If Henry has a hundred horses, how many men-at-arms will he field? How many will he field if he has five hundred? He will want Rouen, he will want Paris. He will take cannon to their walls, four horses to each iron cart—or six?_  Though the herald knew which questions to ask, which answers to seek in the numbers and the counts, he could not shake an image of Henry insistently clouding his judgment; the young king is barefoot upon his white stallion, his smile catching the light as he half turns in the saddle to look behind him. White flowers are falling through the air, all around his welcoming grin, his beckoning, more brilliant than his gold and jewels, more divine than any image.  _How does one man plan like an old man and fight like a young one?_  As if to mock the herald, the sharp retort of an arrow’s impact echoed his every step. Mind in turmoil, he gave up his endeavors for futile and searched out the source of the sound.

Behind the stables, there were four men of straw, against the castle’s northern wall. Their broken skin trembled in the breeze, ends fluttering. There was one man of flesh and blood, drawing back his bow so smooth. Against the retreating night, he formed the arch of an illuminated letter, softly curling, strongly bolded, striking a stance that the English were known for, feared for. The arrow left the string with a viper’s hiss, and struck the heart dead center, but the straw man only carried on fluttering. Montjoy stopped to watch the lone archer draw and loose another, this one caught by a stray gust and carried clattering to the stones beyond, but he felt restlessness pull at him, and left without disturbing the unknown bowman. The burrowing ache of his injuries made him loathe to wander far, but he could not sit alone, could not wait in silence for fear of the sheer openness of thought, the precarious danger lurking there. He was the lonely mast adrift amidst a sea of clouds, turning astern to the winds, because the doldrum sound is safer than the stormy surf and its lightning terrors. 

“No shield, no seal, no coat of arms, How shall I know you are who you say you are, Sir Knight? By what mark shall I record your request?” Hugo’s raised voice penetrated the low wooden walls, drawing the curious herald back into the building.

“Stablemaster—”

Montjoy knew his voice at once, rigid, austere, and the slant of his lean body as one hand hugged the pommel of a sword slung at the hip, and the other raked through cropped fair hair in stormy frustration. Though the knight was a tall man, of a height with the herald, the stablemaster was taller, and thick as a drum, with barrel arms built for cowing wild stallions, firmly folded beneath his violent scowl. “Master Hugo,” said the herald, approaching the two men, “May I lay your mind to rest? This man is indeed a knight of England’s own, all covered in glory from Agincourt. Only yesterday he was standing by your king, there in the courtyard.” Robert turned in surprise as Montjoy pitched in over his shoulder, but his severe expression lightened as he recognized the herald.

“Montjoy King of Arms,” noted the horse master gloomily, “knight of Agincourt or no, how can I give away His Majesty’s horses without his royal say-so? Like all the others, he will have to wait for His Majesty’s order.” Montjoy turned to behold the loose formation of English heraldry cluttering up the courtyard in all its gloriously gaudy echelons, and could not help the tone of dryness that cut through his sincerity. “I assure you this man is as trustworthy as those squires and pursuivants yonder, who no doubt will return the mounts you have lent them promptly upon arrival to London.” Pursing his lips, the bearded man protested, “I get your meaning, King of Arms, but—they are sanctioned by the king’s own herald!” Montjoy shrugged, knowing the meat of the argument was done, and mimed craning his neck to look over the crowd. “If need be I could get William’s attention, just a moment—” With a great huff of resignation, Hugo waved away the theatrics. “Mercy on me. I give up. If anyone asks, I will be sure to address them to you. Quickly now, what can I get your friend today?” _Friend?_  

“The big grey with the blaze. The one stabled next to the scarred black.” Recognition shining through his face, the stablemaster hesitated, and as he drew breath to speak Montjoy shook his head firmly. “The grey, please.” Defeated, the man cast a forlorn look at the archer-knight before disappearing into the midst of the stalls. “Is this a good horse you have chosen, Montjoy?” asked Robert softly, watching his retreating back. “A good horse,” said the herald, “a courser that Hugo will be loath to part with.” Sure enough, when the man returned with the grey in tow, his face had darkened like stormy weather, and he thrust the lead reins into Robert’s hands with bad grace. “Anything else?” he enquired sarcastically, but the herald only patted him sympathetically on the back. “Thank you. Hugo. Another time perhaps.”

The grey gelding snorted and shied as Robert reached out a hand, prompting him to frown at the animal. “Are you sure about this one?” he asked the herald doubtfully. “It is not friendly.”  
“A good thing in a soldier’s horse,” came the quiet reply, “you will become the only one it trusts. Like so.” He followed the lines of the harness with gentle fingers, slowly, delicately, as if tracing the worn grooves of ancient etchings, and resettling the leather where it had been pinched and awkward, whispering into the horse’s ear as he did. Then, as the gelding became accustomed to his touch, he worked down the neck and chest with his fingers, never moving faster than a calming breath, smoothing the hair and soothing the flesh where it had taken offense, until the tension seemed to bleed out from the big grey, and it sniffed his hands with muttering curiosity. “From him, stamina and strength,” he mused, stroking the blaze down the long Roman nose, “but also perseverance, I should think. Calmness in chaos, fearlessness in war.” _The better for your steady eye. Your quick, decisive hand, Englishman._

The knight had fallen into a meditative silence, from which his green gaze emerged hungry and attentive. When he finally spoke he said, “Seems as though he trusts you, herald?”  
“A horse is not so hard to understand,” Montjoy said with a soft smile, “I promise he will serve you well.”  
“Are you arming an enemy the better for war?” Montjoy held his stare unblinking.  
“A horse is no weapon, Robert,” he sighed, “To me, at least.”  
“That’s one way to see it.” An arch smile flashed across the skepticism.  
“Where do you ride to, so early and so urgently?” Montjoy asked, little wanting to argue battlefield logic with this sharp English soldier. Robert looked off into the distance, westwards, inland, and smiled a foolish, faraway smile. “Home,” he said with pleasure. “Home is calling. And you? Your fellow heralds are long gone.” Montjoy gestured languidly to the raised portcullis.  
“Perhaps I will catch them, or not. One way or another. Please excuse me, I should saddle my horse.”

When Montjoy emerged with his mare in hand he was surprised to find the Englishman still waiting for him. “Let me escort you, Montjoy,” he said, by way of explanation, “I did not like the look of those men last night.” Though it was a sincere and touching request, it made the herald chuckle, and in contemplating it, he asked out loud, “Is it not odd, for an Englishman to ask to guard a Frenchman’s life, when we were both at Agincourt?” A razor grin was his reply, slicing thin a trim English face beneath glittering green eyes. “This war between our two countries is lasted a hundred years, and mayhaps a hundred more. Shall we wait till it is done? We’ll wait till the Lord’s kingdom comes.” _This sentiment comes most familiar, but that does not make it less true._

Montjoy stared at the Englishman. “It was not so long ago that I was demanding ransom from your king,” he said softly.  
“And it was not so long ago I was putting good English bodkins in your countrymen. If I did not kill your brother, good. You did not kill mine. Even better.” He tapped on his left breast, above his heart, where there would have been arms sewn into the rough cloth, had he any to display. “I have no quarrel with you, but for that device I am still owed.” Montjoy mulled over his words awhile, then shrugged, and nodded.  
“God’s kingdom come indeed. I remember what is owed.” He remembered two bodies sprawled in the sand, blood draining from their necks in a crimson torrent. The knight who led his new horse down the street, head bowed so solemnly, had a sword and dagger buckled about his waist, and hung a bow and quiver from his saddle. He remembered the silhouette of his body against the light of the tavern, sheltering him from harm; the sharp, bright outline of his face as he became judge and executioner in the harsh afternoon sun.  _No, you did not kill my brother— but—_

*

“All this—for a herald,” he says at last.

“No.” Henry takes the shirt he has long forgotten and settles it on his shoulders, drawing tenderly his arms through the long sleeves, and smoothing it down. It is embroidered with the Valois arms, as every piece of clothing he owned, and for a moment, a whimsical second, Henry circles those raised wefts of thread with a curious finger, then wraps it around the ties at the neck, tugging on it to draw the herald’s head forward. His eyes leap from the device to the herald, shedding shadow for sky blue brilliance.

“All this for you,” he whispers.

*

“William,” Montjoy called to the beleaguered King of Arms, as they crossed the courtyard to the gatehouse. “It doesn’t matter how well you ride, if you do not leave on time!” The fury of English curses at his back improved his mood immensely. Down the main thoroughfare and out onto the king’s road, the road that led to London town, they rode at a clip, the English knight eager to test the mettle of his new mount, and the big grey only too willing to oblige, tearing up the ground in long smooth strides. Montjoy gave the mare her head, and easily she kept pace at the gelding’s shoulder, never once interrupting her fluid, everlasting rhythm, all skill and composure next to the English duo’s gangling enthusiasm. Once the castle was out of sight, and they were well and truly mired in the undulating hills, Robert took them off the trail and boldly into the unmarked countryside, navigating by the newborn light of the rising sun. As they trotted in green fields, fiercely brilliant against the crisp bitter frost, with the crimson and cerise conflagration close enough to reach out and grasp, always just beyond the next rise, Robert let out a great wordless shout, startling the herald from his reverie. “Is this not the most beautiful country?” the man declared solemnly, “Is this not the best place in the world? The best of all times to be alive?”

_The best time to be alive?_

“I do believe my home has more beautiful country,” the herald replied in all seriousness, one hand on his chin as he considered the possibilities, “and the fields near my house a better place to ride.”

 _Around the lake and through the woods, we race, Phillippe and I, faster than the falcon falling. Faster than the sound of chiming._  

Robert shot him a violent scowl, then burst out laughing. “You are lucky I’m in a good mood, Frenchman,” he threatened, “else I would not let this grave insult pass my ears without a good English response.” Reining in the irresistible urge to scorn him, Montjoy tapped his mount lightly with his legs, and she responded immediately, surging forward to overtake the grey in a heartbeat. “Come with your retribution, Englishman,” he taunted loudly from relative safety, turning around in his saddle until the wound in his back ached with bitter acid. “Your country is cold and wet and its people without humor!” Growling loudly, rising so inevitably to the mockery, Robert dug in his heels and urged his mount forward to catch the herald, but for every heaving breath more he could summon from the grey courser, the dark bay mare matched it pound for pound of hard, ground-churning speed, and kept him behind.

“Even your kings must find their green pasture and their sunshine in my country,” Montjoy shouted, joyful in the swift wind that tore away his words and tugged his cloak about his shoulders, “What retribution can you offer me that is worse than being here?” With a flick of the reins, two, the bay mare veered left, then right, each elegant swerve showering their pursuers with hand-sized clods of dirt, never a hair of her streaming mane and tail out of place, never letting the snorting grey get closer than an armslength. “Give up, Robert! My horse may have the palfrey’s delicate step but her father was the king’s own hunter!” Undaunted, Robert put his head down to his horse’s neck and rode like a man possessed, lost to all sensation but the brutal throbbing impact of hoof on soil, so they galloped at a frenzied pace up and down the long low hills, until finally the panting grey lost its footing on a slyly canted slope, and skidded, and jerked and reared with a great trumpeting cry, sending the knight hurtling off its back to land heavily on his face in the field.

“Robert!” Montjoy reined in and dashed over concerned to where the man lay prone, but as soon as he had rounded the glossy, sweating bulk of the big grey, the Englishman rose up, silent as an avenging shade from the grave, and crashed into him. He lost his footing with a cry of surprise, and in a confused clump they both went down, rolling for several meters down the grassy slope struggling in earnest before the Englishman gained the upper hand. “You were saying?” asked the knight as he straddled the harshly panting herald, fresh soil and crushed wildflowers falling in damp clouds from his back and arms. “Mercy,” Montjoy gasped, breathless with relief, rendered limp by the thick bite of pain into his back and side, “I yield, Sir.” A fine, toothy smile decorated the other man’s face, one that Montjoy had never seen. “Then you are mine.”

*

“For you are mine.” Henry slid a ring off the last finger of his left hand, and held it up to the flickering tripartite gleam, perched between thumb and index. A simple band of brilliant gold. The liquid play of amber firelight explored its perfect geometry in languid freedom, sweeping across the smooth exterior, illuminating an inscription painstakingly rendered in Latin. 

 _Jesus Autem Transiens Per Medium Illorum Ibat.  
__And Jesus passing through the midst of them, went his way._  

 _A prayer of the road, intended for the safety of travelers. A ring such as a herald might wear, but not a king._  

Henry took his hand, and placing the ring in the same position, found it to be a good fit.

“No King of England’s, but, perhaps, Henry of England’s—” he said, with a kind of sadness. “After all, what have kings, that privates have not too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	18. The Trumpets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The players line up to the sound of trumpets.

The wind brought the distant sound of trumpets, rolling over the downs, calling to the hunters in the wintered woods, the women in the barns, the children in their daydreams; calling to each in their solitude. Their world hath been remade whilst they were gone. Both men, war-trained and battle-weary, stiffened instantly as the plangent metallic cry washed over them, but a second was all it took for the French herald and the English knight to remember themselves.

_My father, in his low voice of stone, said once, counsel yourself to listen closely to the sound of horns. More often than not they are a cacophony, unskilled and irritating, but the good herald knows the import of every tune. They call to festivity, and to funeral, and to war, they commend our poor souls._

_Old man, I know this tune; its timbre is a gay one. You would have stoppered your ears and turned away. You would not have shared it in the company of an Englishman._

In that moment, all the lines of Robert’s face had tightened like the drawn and waiting string, and all the animation of his flesh had withdrawn into his eyes, where flashing with cold light, Montjoy saw again the same man, blade in hand, opening throats onto the sun-drenched sand. The man whose touch should make him shudder, whose same lips called him friend. From where he lay pinned, in that moment, he feared him deeply; the man who was come and gone again, replaced by a smiling Englishman.

“There is nothing to be gained from taking a herald,” Montjoy counseled, tapping the hand that held him down. “And everything to lose, Englishman.”

“Nothing?” Robert asked as he released the herald. He sat back on his heels, clear green gaze fixed on the herald where he lay barely stirring, breathing ragged. “Three cowards came in the dark of night to kill an unarmed herald. Did they come for nothing?”

Montjoy inclined his head, an almost-nod of recognition, sensing Robert’s inquisitive stare raking him unseen. Though his back burned with agony, there was numbing relief to be had from the cold dry ground, and he laid his head back to the frostburned winter grass with a sigh that was not all unhappy. Overhead the sky burned richly blue, so bright he couldn’t open his eyes all the way, like the soft silk robes of oriental sultans as they walked in jeweled slippers through their painted solars, burning incense and spice, and their gardens of orange trees; like the kiln-fired blush of wondrous tiles in patterns that filled their vast open halls with God's own palette. The vision of a world of grace and beauty, unblemished by the blood and mud of endless war. _A vision in smoke and dreams_ , he thought, closing his eyes. _The Moslems do not escape the endless violence._

“Did you know them?” Robert fidgeted with his gloves as he asked. He had not received the same sidereal insight, and was frowning over a far more practical question. Distantly contemplating the hoof-churned ground over which they had come, there setting up his thoughts in a linked and logical line, he demanded the truth with a familiar inquisitorial tone. “Are you always this curious?” Montjoy murmured. Direct and unabashed, his questions were too pointed; seeking the matter’s heart, dangerous for both asker and asked. The herald covered his eyes with one hand, and made a wan gesture with the other. “May I not ask as a friend?” Robert grumbled, “Why did they hunt you? Were they English?” Montjoy sighed and propped himself up onto his elbows, eyes flicking open to impart the archer-knight a meaningful look. “This is a game played with men’s lives, Sir,” he said quietly, “I do not want to involve you. Accept my advice, I give it sincerely. It is none of your concern.”

“Must I demand a life debt to get a single grain of truth from you?” asked the Englishman with a thin smile. “It is your right,” Montjoy said solemnly, offering his hand, and Robert clasped it, his smile spreading. “Thank you for last night.” He eyed Robert’s pressing curiosity uneasily, how innocent he was, or seemed, to the shadow cast by intrigue over the actions of honorable men. “I do not know them, or why they came, but I am warned that I speak to your king too much in private.” He heaved a frustrated sigh and released his grip. “I’m told that some English knights grow suspicious, and defensive. So they try to resolve their doubts the only way they know how. An unarmed herald is easy prey, as you have seen, and in the dark of night, dishonor shall pass them by.”

“Strange. Is it not the business of heralds to speak to kings?”

_Yes. But not like this. Not by sword’s edge, on the breath of a kiss. Not by candlelight, in the arms of a promise._

“How does any soldier see a man who carries only words for his living? Who uses naught but his tongue?” Montjoy shrugged and let a slow breath, in his heart counting as a cloud passed ponderously by his brilliant azure sky, counting out the shadows of his thoughts. “Behind closed doors, he may as well be a spy. True or not, warranted or not, the right to safe conduct pales before such misgivings.”

“Words dark like the raven’s back, yet still you bear no arms, nor is there any armor beneath this tabard.” Robert touched the embroidered lily above the heart, still bearing its secret scar unmended. Montjoy had painstakingly washed out the bloodstains, but he needed thread of gold to sew the cut closed, and would have to request it laboriously, third-hand, from an English herald, to a household steward, to a matron. _Or mend it, a royal icon, in common cloth. What would that say about the state of our burnished throne?_

“What shall I do with arms, but damn myself by raising one,” he said, shaking his head. “For what it’s worth, I have a shield.” Bunching up the hem of his mantle in his hand, he felt its thick edge lined with heavy wool thread, and the meticulous stitching that backed every last golden petal. “It is made all of cloth and symbols, of my master’s influence, and the honor of the highborn.”

 _Their own precious honor. The only shield the great lords of England shall respect. It is rendered all the more precious, given that much more weight, by their honor-loving King._  

He started unconsciously at a fleeting memory of judging eyes in a room of cold fire and bared fangs, each pair laying down its sentence, each pair with its own detached claim to what was intimately his, his self, his own life.  _You are mine._  Robert too, laying down his entitlement with unabashed confidence. _You already know what I think of highborn honor. It bends, and it breaks._ English soldier, officer, executioner, Henry’s new-made knight listened to him with lighted interest, his gaze flicking skeptically to the golden adornment of the herald’s mantle.

“These painted animals and ribbons and froth are no good for a shield,” Robert observed evenly. His serious, disapproving expression, as if a merchant presented with goods of dubious quality, elicited a cheerful chuckle from the herald. “No, they are no shield,” Montjoy agreed, “They are reins and chains for the monsters within men. Self-imposed, and shed at will. But, as it stands, they are all I have.”

Abruptly anxious, seeking some escape, he glanced over to his mount where she waited patiently, reins hanging loose from the saddle. The grey had wandered to her side, and companionably they were putting their heads together, cropping the withered grass, knowing nothing of the gulf between them. The gulf that existed only in the world of men. _One dark and fast, well-travelled, well-fed. Under my aegis, under this mantle, she is pampered and protected. One pale and fierce and all blood-stained, he will know the pace of the march, he will know the smell of burning and the sound of men dying. How can these two stand by each other, so close, so unknowing?_ He searched Robert’s expression for any sign of his thoughts, but the Englishman was a still mirror lake, perfectly reflecting, unrelenting.

“I know little of the herald’s profession,” Robert said at length, “But it seems to me not right for your face to bear as many marks as mine.” He put one hand on the edge of the herald’s sleeve, plucking at the worn material between finger and thumb, and drew it back before Montjoy could react. “I can see your wrists are wrapped in bandages,” he sighed, “And as I am a fighting man, I know what that means.”

_I went before a great Valois Lord, and he showed me fully the contempt of the fighting man for the unarmed herald._

“Do you pity me, Sir Knight? Do you think me weak and helpless? You know not if I deserved it. You know nothing of me but what you see,” Montjoy countered, pulling down his sleeve self-consciously. “Perhaps I am a spy, and your countrymen have the right of it. You should ask them, not me.”

“I see a bystander—a witness, giving himself onto the point of my sword for someone little more than a stranger. I see a pompous knight of Suffolk accusing him, and his English friends gathering round him so swiftly. I count three knives raised with dark purpose in a moonlit Southampton alley. Do I know nothing?” He seemed to ask himself, and did not wait for an answer.

“Did you deserve it?”  
“What?”  
“Did you deserve it?” Robert repeated, nodding to the herald’s arms now folded tightly.  
“No,” Montjoy said, shrugging, tired and grudging. “It doesn’t matter.” _These things happen._ “There is no country in the world where honor can be a man’s only shield.”  
“You seem to be a smart man. Perhaps you should find some safer calling,” Robert said without irony.

Grimly amused, Montjoy laughed aloud. “By my own hand, I make my bed. Deserving or not, I lie in it. No, you have us heralds wrong, Sir. I have led you to misconceive, and now I correct it. In any city of Christendom, I have a table to eat at and a bed to sleep in. I have clothes on my back and fodder for my horse. Upon a battlefield, I may walk unmolested. I daresay my calling is safer than yours.”  
“I can raise my sword when men attack me,” Robert argued, one hand on the hilt, “I can depend on my skill, not their integrity, to defend me.”  
“So you think,” said the herald, with a soft, final smile, appreciating his sincerity as if it were a distant rainbow, half-formed and ephemeral, and yet able to span the entire sky. “Until now, you have found your way simple, clear. No longer. For you, Englishman, the weightiest charge of all.” In a most formal incarnation, he pronounced, “The knight’s pledge, his banner. His duty. You should know, it comes with all manner of bonds and complications.”

Robert showed his teeth in a challenging half-grin, half-growl. “Come at me then, Montjoy,” he leveled like a spearman expecting the cavalry charge, springing to his feet and spreading his arms wide. “For what do I sign away my liberties? Give me a device to bear all of my honor.”

Montjoy sized him up, openly, swiftly, and the English knight submerged without complaint into his attention, as frank as the herald had known any man, disarmingly innocent of deception. The width of his shoulders, its spread unevenly muscled with the bowman’s strenuous physicality, held straight and forward with easy confidence. The girth of his wiry arms, the wreath of toughened calluses on his wrist where the archer feels the retribution of his own force snapping back to exact equal payment for his deadliness. His fierce and beardless English face with its eyes of tendriled hazel-green, lightly scarred, telling of a time in battle; lightly wrinkled; showing the face of a man with no fears. A man with few burdens. A thin and challenging smile laid lightly on his lips, he submits the herald to the same close scrutiny, and perhaps he comes away knowing something more than what he sees. And in the shadow behind the lines, the man who answered the call of the trumpet, the warrior whom the commander shall treasure, his killing desire falling headlong like the eagle bent on its prey, naturally free from doubt, free from reservation. _Here is your knight of Agincourt, Henry, well-deserving, and fearsome._

“A parted field. One half to pay homage to your maker, one half to glorify yourself.” _Perfect for the new-made officer, to remind him of his duty even as it inflames his ambitions. They are arms to satisfy both the knight and the knighter. The demands of chivalry._ The device took its shape with the deliberation of revelation.

“The dextrier is the significant. A field of dark burgundy, its face scattered with silver arrowheads.”  
 _Parted per pale. Seme de pheon. Argent and gules sanguine._

 _A field of blood and falling iron._ It will scream of Agincourt like the whistle of falling goose feathers through an iron sky, and William will purse his lips and wonder as he reads this icon into the lists at the aching similarity to the gold and blue standard that had fallen on that same field, as the jostling inverted symbols brush by him ever so lightly with a bitter, ironic sorrow.  _It is no triumphant gaudy icon of an English painter; the muted language will confuse him. It is an icon offered solemnly from victim to victor._

“On the sinister—a red lion, on a white field.”  
 _A lion rampant guardant, in gules, on Argent. Opposing colors. Mirrored hues. Blood and iron._

“White symbolizes the knight’s charge of purity. Your homage to Henry of England, who will touch his sword to your shoulder, and make you his, and all your sons, his son’s.” The herald’s voice shuddered, imperceptibly. “This is the standard that I offer to you, Robert, bowyer’s son.”

“A fine design,” Robert concluded, offering his palm with an open smile. “It is not so queer a thing, for an emblem exchanged between enemies.” The callused hand closed tightly around Montjoy’s and Robert pulled him to his feet with effortless strength.

“Welcome to the fields of gold and gallantry, knight bachelor of England,” sighed the herald, dusting himself off nonchalantly to disguise the unease seated at his center. “Now you will be hunted for your gauntlet and your glove, and you will hunt in turn. Now you are part of this grand game of chivalry, and I will remember your name when it comes time to debate the ransoms and call the lists.”

“It is not a game to the King,” said the knight suddenly, purposefully, his smile exchanged for the silent, stoic zeal that could be seen on the face of pilgrims with their bloody feet all along the dusty roads to the East, as they walked with their God in reverie. “Where first I thought what fools these knights are, with their flowers and airs and colorful cloths—When I saw Henry fight at Harfleur—at Agincourt...” 

 _When you saw your king wreathed in the splendor of his divine rage, when you saw him more enthroned and crowned in his glory than he ever would be in the quiet graven halls of stone, then you knew your heart had broken._   _Then, one of a thousand others, you knew your heart had fallen. I do not half but understand thee, Englishman, for the one who had washed the ankles of his men in French blood, how righteously he had done it. How beautifully, he had won it. The hearts of a hundred thousand men, and one._

“As you say,” he said quietly. The Englishman turned and grasped his hand, startling the herald with his intensity. “I will regret those whom I kill in coming days, Montjoy. I will be sorry to you now, for the deaths of your friends at my hand, because I will surely kill many for King Henry.” The sudden winds of surprise, of strong half-remembered grief blew through the herald and seemed to play a lingering tune of sweet sorrow. He fumbled for the right words. “What warrior regrets his victories?” He asked with a wan smile finally, “I did not ever think to fault thee, nor shall I accept an apology.”

_Through much practice, you can wear a hair shirt, and not feel the blood as it runs down your skin._

“You cannot kill my brother,” Montjoy said with the slightest of jests, the briefest of sad smiles. _He fights and dies in foreign lands._ “And I cannot kill yours. What more can we common men ask for? All else is the winds of thrones and monarchs, and we will sail with them, like sailors we weather the good and bad times alike. I shall not regard thee as an enemy, Robert, just as the sailor shall not hate the sea, until that time you regard me as one.” 

_And I have long ago lost sight of both shores, all around me are only foreign waters now._

“Let us be friends, Frenchman?”  
“If you would have it so, we are.”

Without warning, Robert embraced him, tightly enough that he winced at the pain stabbing through his back and shoulder. “What—” he began under his breath, and then, thought better of. The space was filled with pure emotion, and no words went there without disruption. _Above a bare steel edge, wet with the blood of my countrymen, the curious demanding eyes of a good man._

The trumpets called again, and falling like a crystal rain, the chiming of church bells in answer. _Hark, hark, the King is home again._ Each note as winsome and delicate as the pale mountain flower, starkly soft and supple in its cradle of rock and stone. “Listen there, London is calling,” murmured the herald to the knight.  _Destiny is calling._  “I hope that you will stay at home and make hunting bows for idle noblemen, Robert, but Henry is not that kind of king.” As the sound of clarion bells echoed back across the hills, they found their horses in a manner of sacred silence.

*

They did not have to travel far to find the heralds. They only had to follow the periodic blasts of calling carols, and the ragged lines of travelers forming up, following eager in the golden wake of good news, anxious for their young and handsome hero to brighten the tarnished throne of Henry Bolingbroke. At the sight of the many-colored flags flapping in the breeze, Robert clasped his left arm once before wheeling away into the undulating hills, lost from sight in a moment, leaving Montjoy to walk his mare up the chattering column of rainbow silks, straight and beautiful; a glittering arrow launched from the bow of an angel, aimed so brazenly at immortality. He glanced over the flags they brandished; the fantastic beasts stalking their breasts, and listened in on their breathless conversations with half an ear, discerning in the tidal susurrations of sound as many accents as there were colors of velvet on display. Many of the royal menagerie he knew well were in attendance, and the officers of associated uncles and cousins and brothers and distant relations, but many more still of minor lords with minor contribution, their own shine burnished by accompanying the sun, their tongues never having tasted the dangerous ecstasy of royal proclamation.  _I remember, faintly, that pure liquid excitement, bubbling like panic in the blood and turning sensible heads to puffs of scented air and silver meringue._

And some, differently dressed and fresh from the smoky streets of London town with the city’s odor still around them, foreign heralds already penning letters in their heads, already riding other sunkissed paths, other dark and daunting woods to far flung thrones. The papal states would know, if they didn’t already, and then the banker-kings in their city-manors, counting out the coins they were due, and the dour Bavarian dukes would hear, then the canny merchants of the Mediterranean would carry the tale even to far exotic Constantinople, from the lips of these who journeyed here. In time, even to the baking plains of the Holy Land, where sun-darkened warriors with their tattered mantles of white cotton would think of lands they had not seen in years, and some would turn their heads to look in that sunset direction with longing, and others would turn their horses, and start the long road home.

Those that noted his passing called to him as friends, as acquaintances, the louder ones hailing him from where they rode, others nodding as they caught his eye, or waving a hand discreetly at their elbows. Here was the full ranks of the English college, and more of the foreign offices, a gathering more uncommon than the unicorn, and more peacockish and colorful. He greeted them by name and reined in to inquire of their health, and their masters. Some smiled to be recognized, some garrulous and chatty, and others, with more intimate knowledge of his character, waved him off good-naturedly with a jibe or challenge. They knew when he showed off, when he feigned innocence, and teased him in return.

At the front of the line, the usual suspects presented themselves in a state of high exuberance, holding forth in the fashion of those well versed at passing the tedium of long journeys. The late night and early morning did not show on their seasoned faces, and their enthusiasm only seemed to grow with the steadily rising sun. Snatches of their voices sailed by in the headwind, curiously pitched, as if coming from a great distance. Guyenne King of Arms was conspicuous by his absence, his sleek black horse the     darkest mount amongst them, and a full hand taller than most. By his rank and his inclination, Montjoy had assumed William would be in charge, but to his surprise, it was elegant, soft-spoken Richard Clarenceaux King of Arms who rode at the dragonhead on his unassuming brown mare, and it was Richard who saw him first, as he turned to check on the order of his parade.

“Montjoy,” said Clarence, “We were beginning to think you had contrived to get yourself lost.”  
“I never get lost.”  
“What about that time—” John began, breaking off the conversation he was having with Bedford just behind him to seize an irresistible opportunity.  
“Where is William?” Montjoy asked, cutting him off mercilessly. They were at the very front of the column, with only the trumpet blowers going ahead, and Montjoy could just make out dark smoke drifting along the low horizon, a sure sign that London was close.  
“Riding with the King to Eltham,” Richard frowned, “It seems he had something to say to you before you left.” Suddenly weary, Montjoy turned his head aside.  
“He invariably does. Pray tell, some good news instead.”  
“Almost to London town now. Undoubtedly we’ll meet the Mayor and the aldermen when we arrive,” said the English herald, pulling a long face. “I suspect Lord Mayor Whittington will have more than a few choice words to say about this shambling crowd we bring him.”

The sun was nearing its zenith, but the short winter day had some hours left in it yet. The smell of turned dirt saturated the air above the road. The pall of two hundred men, horses and ponies left it even heavier, and the number of people following the mounted column was legion, an army in its own right, more streaming in at every moment as the news gathered moment and began to move with its own impetus.

Those same hardy, practical people, with one eye to the weather always, and another to the ground, had put down what was in their worn hands for the singular chance to catch sight of their king, the agent of their foreign victory, the stranger who had taken their sons to war to cover them in glory. They would not stand to hear the triumph described in another’s mouth. They would not stand the envy if their neighbors gloated about the streets of London running with wine, be it a blatant untruth, and so whole rows of families in generations came together like some nomadic clan of the steppes searching for their ancestral hunting grounds, dogs and pigs and donkeys in tow. They were the countryside on the move, so much so that the ground shook and the city walls trembled.

“Do you know the legend of the piper in Hamelin?” Montjoy asked as he surveyed the followers who came on foot. In the crowd he saw children, wide-eyed and dirty-soled, struggling to hold on to hands and hems amongst the heavily tramping feet as some travelled further and saw more people than they had in their entire lives. 

 _The children were led from the town and lost in the hills, to the place of execution_.  _The street that stands silent._

“This day is a triumph,” Richard chided, wincing as wintry words were called to his mind.  
“Another generation of foolhardy Englishmen lost to the temptations of what is not theirs, another season of war and destruction for all.”  _Oh, yes—a triumph._  
“What desperate poetic gloom! I had always thought the shroud of war passed you by,” Richard remarked offhandedly, choosing not to comment on the scorn. Montjoy turned wide eyes on him, taken aback by vertigo as the conversation skewed in a strange and unforeseen direction.  
“Have I given you that impression?”

The Englishman smiled a little, a gentle soothing curve of the lips, seeking his understanding spirit. It was one of Richard’s talents to move the emotions of men just so, Montjoy knew well, nudging them this way and that, with a hint trailing off the raised edge of an eyebrow, or a resting in the muscles of the face. It was his gift that he had a refined and handsome face to behold, one preternaturally imbued for charming lackadaisical Lords, including his own royal-blooded master _. Though you lack William’s fierce ambition, you surely do not lose to him in raw talent, in admirable control._

“You are ever calm and prepared. It makes a man envious. Our glorious King does not balk you a single word. Our bloody victory does not throw you a single moment.”

Montjoy heard him speak through a red rushing wildness, a rage that rose like water boiling up a cauldron wall, rising fast, but faster still, a sadness that welled up after, both emotions extinguishing each other before ever broaching the flat surface. The sadness was, after all, rising from a deeper well, and had all the more pressure behind it. His fingers tingled with the cool remembered slickness of dead men’s skin, their staring eyes he had closed, their gaping mouths so accusing. “You were there, Richard,” he whispered, barely loud enough to bridge the handswidth between their shoulders, fading before the next rider over. “You think I felt no shame or sorrow, when I asked your King for charitable leave? You think it was nothing to me, to offer surrender on my knees?”

“Yes, I was there,” said the Englishman, turning on him eyes luminous with distant recollection. “What did you say to Henry in his tent?” he asked suddenly, “To make him strike you, a king’s herald?”  
“Clarenceaux King of Arms,” Montjoy sighed, “Do you suspect me? Are we not friends?”  
“Of course, we are. I am sorry if I have given offense.” He reached over to pat the French herald on the shoulder, tapping lightly with his fingertips as if testing the shell of an incubated egg. “You are too good at hiding your emotions. It shall not hurt you to rely on us, your friends.” _Was that a hint of sentimental reprimand? Or a professional challenge, or a warning?_

“I told Henry he was wrong to grieve for our six thousand dead. That he betrayed four generations of the House of Plantagenet with his apology. I gave him, a victorious king on the bloody field of his triumph, disrespect beyond measure.”

Richard met his stare out through the corner of his eye, though his gaze was fixed on the winding road. As always, the man was impeccably seated on his horse, his back straight and tall, the same bearing with which he sat the knife-scarred dining table, or in the tent of war. The same bearing with which he conducted his master’s secrets. Rumor was the color of his blood ran deep blue with breeding, but none of his friends would betray his trust to look him in up in the libraries, and the quality of his horse, his clothes, were always firmly of middling standard. When asked, he would, with a straight face, tell a story of low birth and dutiful servitude, and ignore the bemused disbelief that followed.

“Why? Because you were angry?”

_Yes, I was angry. And tired. And hugely sick of death. I was shamed by his sympathy. But I was also hurting to witness his pain._

“Yes, I was angry. I said some things without thinking. What would you have said to the face of a mourning enemy king?”  
“You know me—nothing of import. Something empty, and safe. I have not your nerve, Montjoy King of Arms. I am in awe of it.”  
“ _Richard_ ,” he said, making a mocking gesture to end the conversation with some finality. The English herald inclined his head to one side, allowing the taunt to stand as he relinquished some of his probing curiosity. Their hushed exchange had not attracted undue attention in the general commotion that seethed hard on their flanks, and satisfied with his answer, Clarence was content to change the subject.

“Thank you for telling me,” Richard said with a light smile, _for trusting me_ , he did not say, though Montjoy read it in his warm gaze. “Now let me tell you something that may be of interest. Someone came up to me, when we were boarded in Calais. An English knight, asking after you by name. Not for your attention, but after your history. Your character.”

 _Perhaps Henry needs a spymaster after all._  His English Lords lacked nothing in courage or loyalty, but Montjoy had so far poor opinion of their intrigues. With the sole exception of, perhaps, his gatekeeper, and his least harmonious brother. Clarence, in the shadows, with this disconcerting herald and his proud bastard strutting in the wings. _These would not be amiss in any French court_ , he thought.

“I know of three who did not find me welcome on the crossing,” Montjoy said, “d’Surrey, Bilham and d’ Evanswood. For what reason did the knight inquire?”  
“Ah, it was the latter who came,” Clarence continued, “I had assumed it was something to do with the negotiations of ransom. At the time, I did not think to ask, nor did he volunteer the information.”

_Or was it because you felt the long shadow of the king’s brother stretching all the way back into the closed and curtained chambers of the castle? You who are far better at this game than I? You must have felt his hot breath on the back of your neck that day._

Montjoy glanced sidelong, but Richard’s face was as smooth and trouble-free as ever. “I hope you were a friend to me,” he teased, “I have but my reputation to my name.”  
“I told him, Montjoy King of Arms is a man who can be depended on to do his duty. Other than that, I do not know him well.”  
“What an honest-faced liar you are,” said Montjoy admiringly, “It is I who stands in awe.” Despite his nonchalance, their eyes flickered in tandem to Bedford Herald, who rode beside Lancaster and exchanged with him some casual banter, not noticing the attention he had unwittingly garnered.

 _You mean to tell me, a man of Bedford’s did not merit a serious response. Bedford is watching, you warn, but I think you and I both know exactly which brother wants my head, which shall have me keep it, and which is the most dangerously ambivalent of the four._ _Will you tell me what your own Duke asked, and what you answered, if I dared to broach the question?_

“But to what purpose did you lie to him?” he asked instead, not daring, not testing the boundaries of their friendship.  
“Knights poking around in herald business? God forbid.” Richard snorted derisively, “Let us at least _try_ not to have a repeat of last night’s foolishness.” He shot Montjoy an accusatory glare. “Overgrown bears like John and William may enjoy a good melee, but I like the shape of my nose as it is now. I prefer my hands unbloodied.”  
“I hardly threw a punch,” Montjoy protested. “I said nothing to d’Ashfield.”  
“You taunted those poor fools. And you have caught the eye of the young master Clarence. That in itself is a damning association, I will have you know.”

He had to laugh at that, at the sheer nonsensical world, and the shallow-bottomed rage, the grim grief in his soul made him laugh lower and longer than normal. Richard, sober, serious, turned towards him as far as he could in his saddle. “Are you playing some game, Montjoy? It is not something I have known you to do, but there are words being thrown around I have little liking to.” A slim, terse smile was the Frenchman’s answer as he shook his head, but as he opened his mouth to reply a musical voice sounded out from behind, stealing the sound from his lips.

“Montjoy King of Arms, how pleasantly surprised I am to see you. With talk of games no less.” The herald who rode up to them on a pale white rounsey bore five red balls on his chest, loosely arranged, and though his master had no title other than that of citizen, his messenger rode amongst the heralds of kings with an easy, enviable confidence. “Grant this ill-mannered messenger a word, if you would.”  
“Giovanni—How long has it been?” Montjoy clasped arms with him briefly from horseback. The stout, dark-haired Italian had not changed since their last tension-fraught meeting in Constance, and his lilting voice was as Montjoy remembered, warm with the close familiarity he evoked even with complete strangers. “How is your family?”  
“A new face shows up every time I go back, the old ones spend more and eat more, and Madelena tells me it is time to stop riding around like a fool,” he lamented swiftly, in a weary, practiced tone. “Only this time she said an old fool.”

Richard chuckled as Montjoy nodded his solemn sympathies. Though Giovanni looked and felt young, with his smooth skin and carefree manner, they were separated by almost a decade in age, and the Italian diplomat had a whole host of sons and daughters filling out the branches of his house, many of whom shared his silver tongue and his trade that was plied for money in the kingless Italian states. Together they were formidable in their reach and source of knowledge, which they shared in that free-wheeling mercantile way of the trading states, in one port or another, depending on the winds and the changing tides. Montjoy could not say that he understood the man and his sentiments devoid of duty’s siren song, but his cleverness, his success was not to be denied by anyone.

“Yet here you are,” Montjoy said, “In the victory vanguard of an English king on some miserable misty islands far removed from the good wine and pleasant company of Florence.” Both foreign heralds ignored Richard’s half-hearted protests with practiced ease. “Men are beginning to wake up and cock their ears when the lion roars,” Giovanni winked broadly, “They are finding out he is not so much the cub they had thought before, but a virile challenger at the throats of the aging. Just like your King, my Lord Cosimo is finding this out. For now, I am here only to drink the free wine and eat the many cheeses of celebration. And deliver my goodwill, such as it is…”

At a parting nod to Richard, who hid any curiosity he might have felt beneath a languid smile, the two men fell back in the queue of horsemen, finding some relative privacy. Giovanni rummaged in his embossed leather saddlebag, its bulging contents clinking together, and withdrew two sealed letters, which he passed over without comment. Montjoy frowned as he glanced over them, one addressed to Charles, and another, thicker, addressed to his Queen.

“Not another Milanese murder I hope,” he said acerbically.  
“There is always another Milanese murder,” came the reply with a casual shrug, “Are you so disdainful of visiting my fair Florentine house?”  
“If there were not Englishmen squatting in Harfleur and Frenchmen camping outside Paris, I would visit your fair house without a single backwards glance,” Montjoy sighed, “As it is—”

“Your King and Queen have much to contend with,” said the Italian herald, nodding, “But you know as much as I know about the bloodthirsty Milanese. No, I have something more valuable for your ear, King of Arms.” Giovanni did not hesitate to switch to his native language as he leant in conspiratorially. “In the tavernas, as you know Montjoy, they do not like Englishmen, who do not pay their debts. They also do not like the Frenchmen, who are rude and haughty.” His unrelenting bluntness made the French herald laugh aloud. “But easily enough they will confess to have more in common with you, who can appreciate wine, appreciate art and food and religion, than these so-called savages from their rocky isles. Look, you have even stolen away the papacy. So the question on everyone’s lips, the question worth its weight in gold is—?”

“Will my liege look to the banks for his armies?” Montjoy continued into his silence, “Or will they fund English arrows instead?” Through narrowed eyes, the heralds considered each other. “There is nothing preventing the banks from lending to both. Why then, is this question worth its weight in gold?” Giovanni hung his head as an instructor with a slow-witted charge.

“Nothing can be made to something perhaps. What stake do they have in your wars?”  
“ _Profitto_ ,” said the Frenchman.  
“Yes, of course that, but what else?”

Montjoy wrinkled his forehead in deliberation, but his thoughts were hindered by a thousand other writhing concerns, each one too recent, too close for comfort.

“Please, speak frankly with me today, Giovanni. I am not myself.”  
“Where did we meet last?” the Italian pressed, waving his hands with increasing urgency, “What was constantly on our lips?”  
“Constance,” said Montjoy, understanding dawning with the belated brilliance of epiphany. “The papacy?”

“And do you know what Sigismund did when news of Agincourt arrived?” The Medici messenger had lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper, drawing Montjoy’s head close. “He laughed! This iron and ice man laughed, and loudly, like the hooves of a charging bull. There’s no mistaking he likes the young lion. Nor did he care to hide it. So, on one hand, a cultural dislike, on the other, a political expediency. This choice is not so hard for bankers to make.”

_The bankers keep long records but short grudges. They will forgive all the grief we have engendered for the sake of Avignon to fund our pacification of these brutish English invaders, provided they are made to see it that way—provided Sigismund, whose iron will binds the skittish churchmen at Constance, sees it that way. They will abandon us in a heartbeat, if they think England will return their Pope to Rome._

“I don’t suppose you’ve had a word with Guyenne King of Arms?”  
“Not as yet, _amico_.” He unveiled a regretful grin, “But you know I will.”  
“These matters of the church are worse than the Milanese,” Montjoy sighed, “Advise me, Giovanni. What can France do to make nothing into something?”  
“We are all heartily sick of this papal idiocy,” Giovanni made a muted apologetic gesture to the sky, but it was done more out of habit than true piety, and exchanged in the next instant for cold reason. “Religious issues need time and regional stability to be resolved, Valois herald. Four nations of holy men are holed up at Constance until they can agree to vote as one. So the question worth its weight in gold is—Which arrogant fool is holding up the ecumenical process?” 

_Four nations will vote, France, England, Italy and Germany. But how many need agree for resolution? Not all. Dear God, Henry, unification fresh on his lips, is too far-sighted for the rest of us. My liege, who could not secure that very same prize at Pisa, will not be pleased to hear this advice._

The French herald smiled, the mystery unraveled at last, though the answer was no comforting one. “Fine advice, I thank you for it. As usual, your goodwill is invaluable to me. Surely, I have something with which to reciprocate?” As far as was possible, Giovanni tried to guide his mount closer, until they were less than a sleeve apart, the flanks of their mares brushing gently. “What I would like to know, Montjoy,” he whispered in his perpetual excitement, “is something you have sole province of.” Pausing for effect, the grinning Italian gave Montjoy an opportunity to interject, “You wouldn’t happen to want an account of the English king?” he inquired casually. Giovanni’s expression was answer enough. “Mio dio!” the Italian herald exclaimed, “And he says he is not himself today—Indeed, you are exacting in your observation.” His enthusiasm notwithstanding, Montjoy was skeptical, and gestured off towards the leading riders. “We are here surrounded by the bulk of the English college, and you claim it is my sole province?”

“ _Psh,_ why would I ask an Englishman about his King? I know what he would say, just as I know what you would say about yours.” Montjoy acceded to his point with a sad smile, wondering when was the time that Giovanni had asked an Englishman about his King. Twenty six years ago, perhaps, when an eldest daughter of the House of Wittelsbach had come bearing her mother’s dark Italian beauty, to marry into the House of Valois. _Not knowing what madness she married into. What heartache._ He blinked, and tried to focus, for Giovanni was speaking fast and fervent at him.

“It is well known that you have mocked Henry of Monmouth,” he said, one hand up, three fingers counting, “And you have demanded of him ransom, and you have also surrendered to him. So, I ask only for your clever eye, my friend, your unparalleled reading of a man at his most impassioned— his most vulnerable. What have you seen?”

_On the courtyard sands, I have seen his final judgment, unforgiving as God’s divine reckoning. On the battlefield, I have seen him covered in blood, so immortal, so frightening. But I have seen his quiet smile, in a private moment. I have felt his hands restraining me in madness, sheltering me in a storm. I have said so much of him, and to him, and still I have said nothing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 4


	19. One Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And it shall not be named.

“You want to know if everything you’ve heard is true?”

_You think it sounds impossible. Fantastic. You doubt the hearsay, and yet you yearn for it. It is nothing but a fireside fairytale for you, fleeting entertainment, distant excitement. Upon a cool Mediterranean breeze, you shall buy and sell us without mercy._

“It is.” His hands tightened on the reins. He felt the leather of his gloves flex softly, and the linen wrapping resist. In the palm of his left, a deep-seated ache, bleating a whine with each heartbeat. On the cusp of his right, the band of gold burned cold, hard and unyielding as a good man’s promise. _True, all of it_. “The English King is everything he is made to be, and more.” _The young lion roars, and tremble the lilies of the field. Tremble and fall._

“This is surely an unheard of compliment from the famously saturnine Valois Herald,” Giovanni echoed his whisper unconsciously, as if they spoke beneath high arched stone, belying the bright noon sun and the expansive azure sky.

“You have not yet heard me compliment this man.” He closed his eyes to the vibrant parade, and exhaled, calming. In lidded darkness he heard himself speak without emotion. He made a silent apology to the forlorn dead.

“He is a king fearless in battle and ruthless in strategy. A charismatic leader whose men were half-dead before he began, and lions baying for blood, every one, when he was done with them. A diplomat with peerless perception, whose sincerity disarms, whose promises are backed in iron.”

“Thus, you speak of an Englishman?” said the Italian herald with surprise. Montjoy nodded his head gravely.

“Make no mistake Giovanni, Englishman he may be, here comes a rival to _le Prince Noir_. He is the keystone that harnesses the strength of a hundred reckless English Lords, and makes of them a weapon most fearsome.”

_A blade on the throat of the continent. A threat surpassing even the Black Prince. No, I have not yet complimented him._

“Wherein lies his weaknesses?”

_Cowardice it is not, nor sloth of mind or spirit. No indulgence of food or drink. No soft supine greed. Then what will you merchants and bankers turn up your noses at?_

“For what advantage it might afford you, choose your weaknesses from these I offer. These I have seen.” He laughed without humor or conviction. “Modest? God-fearing? Impeccably moral or undeniably chivalrous? He loves too much of honor and piety. He believes in his own righteous authority. A man may exploit of these, perhaps, but I shall wish you the more luck for trying.”

_In the teeth of the unfeeling rain, I have seen his one weakness, and it shall not be named._

“Though I have not met the man,” Giovanni said at length, stroking his chin, “he impresses simply through the impression he has made on you. Shall he be the next King of France?”

Despite his honesty, and the earnest question, Montjoy sneered as though at an obvious jest. The simple act of doing so reassured him. “Go ask an Englishman, Florentine.” He waved away the uncertainty and the bitter grief, feeling so accusing the clasp of cool metal on his finger, binding a seam that split all the way to the soul. “One man does not overturn the throne of France, whoever he may be,” he said with diplomatic certainty, “One battle is not the war. We will prevail as we have, a hundred years hence.”

“Thus, your message for Cosimo? France remains? France endures?”  
“What message have I for the most august _Priore_? I have none but this. The House of Valois is the throne of France.”  
“Last year,” Giovanni sighed, “last year you would not have sent this message, my friend. You would not have had to.”  
“I hear you,” murmured the herald, “My mistake.”

The sound of trumpets starting up in chorus, louder and grander and joined by a host of other voices in chiming disharmony, drew their attention to the horizon, where smoke hung low and church towers sprouted amidst a dense covering of wooden houses. London was upon them, in all its teeming squalor, its lofty splendor. He made a promise to dine with the Italian, duties allowing, then spurred his way back up the assembly. They made space for him, and he fell in beside John, answering his welcome with a weary wordless smile. The whole host of heralds had fallen silent, many holding their breath, bearing the ponderous crushing weight of the occasion upon their shoulders and in their hands. More than any other, they were reverent to the ceremony. They worshiped their own profane iconography.

They rode stately into London town, a vivid rainbow dragon’s head, the massy, shambling serpent winding back a sinuous mile. Its dusky scales a thousand upturned faces fierce in their fervor, its many thousand milling footsteps rivaling the clamor of the capital city. Emblems pranced and dueled in the gentle breeze, each gleaming thread promised to the sun, every snarling lion prouder than the last. And the somber field of lilies, distant and restrained, bent Montjoy’s gaze beneath a breathless, breaking ache. He carried no flag for this assembly, for it was not warranted, nor messenger’s baton, for it was not needed; nothing but the heavy yoke of tabard and title, nothing but a terrifying memory of whistling arrows and the slick clammy touch of cooling skin.

As he beheld the thronging crowds, simmering just below the fever pitch tomorrow would bring, he knew that only one in ten would mark him, or any French captive who rode in noble state, only one in a hundred would know the fallen from the victors, and abuse them, and the knowledge brought him no relief, no dispensation from the bitter winter’s sorrow blown in with strident trumpet song. He had ridden at Southampton and there he had cried. _No more, no more._ “Too late now to take your leave,” murmured John at his right, reading him at a glance. “Naught but what tomorrow brings,” Montjoy replied evenly, refusing the Englishman’s compassionate regard. “And yet tomorrow I shall ride.” They rode four by four, flank to flank, just behind the vanguard, where, solemn and unprepossessing, Richard, Clarenceux King of Arms, rode alone.

Lord Mayor Whittington, flanked by a dozen red-robed Alderman, waited on London Bridge. Now spying the approaching column, they fanned smoothly outwards, a lurid pooling wound in the stone edifice. At the sight of his bleak countenance, Richard flashed the heralds behind him a single mournful glance. Ever a man of practicality, of expansive mercantile capability, the Lord Mayor’s lips were pressed in a grim line as he beheld the riotous ranks of heraldry assembled, and their long snaking tail of tumbling human chaos. He did not look pleased, and Montjoy felt some kindred sympathy for the languid, elegant herald who rode at their head.

“Lord Mayor Whittington,” said Richard with smooth formality.  
“Clarenceux King of Arms,” replied the Mayor, briskly overriding the herald’s continued courtesies. “Welcome to London. We have much to discuss,” and neatly turning his horse around, “Ride with me.”

If the grim barrage of purpose had discomfited the English herald, he showed nothing but porcelain composure as he clicked his horse forward, filing the narrow space afforded him alone. Their conversation melted into the prickling hail of hooves on stone as all around their elected leader the foremost citizens of the city fell in swiftly, drawing up the lines of heralds behind them with polished disregard. “Heralds of England,” Montjoy said at length, nodding up to the beleaguered head of the procession, “Shall you share in the burdens of your countryman as much as his dignity?” The brightly falling laughter led by the Lancaster Herald in both volume and spirit guided a cheerful grin to him. No, those heralds of rank enough would spend the day lying low, skirting warily about the vortex of industry striving to press the grimy coal-dark heart of the city into diamond.

“And you, Lancaster Herald?”  
“William Bruges does not make me his cat’s paw,” said John with a merry wink. “And I am not without my own obligations.”  
“Will those obligations be carried out with cup in hand I wonder? How many heralds shall your obligations encompass?”  
“Come with us,” the English herald reached out with one hand, inviting, “We did not get a chance last night.”  
“Tonight perhaps,” Montjoy said, declining his handshake. The Englishman threw it up in the air instead.  
“Father Jean will have my head if you are up late on my account. But he did not say the afternoon must go to waste. Spend it yet in our fine company.”  
“Poor Richard. What has he done to deserve this?” Lancaster rolled his eyes and mimed innocence.   
“He is the foremost herald of the shrewdest Plantagenet brother,” he said grinning.  
“The shrewdest, you say?” Montjoy raised an eyebrow in bemused contention.  
“The shrewdest brother has the quietest herald,” said John sidelong, wiggling his own suggestively.   
“Edward,” Montjoy called to the other side of John’s horse. “What say you, Bedford herald, in your master’s defense?” The Englishman started to be addressed, his eyes flickering nervously from John’s toothy smile to Montjoy’s beckoning gesture.   
“Involve me not in your disputes, Montjoy King of Arms,” he said, shading his face, “Be it John or Richard or William, I have not your station to offer them offense.”  
“That is a fine defense.”

John laughed aloud at Edward’s confusion, and conceded the point to the French herald. As the procession wound its way leisurely to Westminster, Richard found each time he spared a look behind him that more familiar faces had disappeared into the thronging streets, his frown growing ever deeper with the fragmenting line. For his sake, the second row of heralds waited until the last moment before they scattered into the city, John whispering hopefully into Montjoy’s ear the secret location of their merrymaking, though the Frenchman only smiled and shook his head. His smile faded even he turned his mount aside, and he did not feel it come or go.

*

Upon a fever bed he had cursed weak and trembling fingers as they slipped and skidded across each name, each message, deliberation wrung from a white-knuckled grip, concentration from a grimly bitten lip. Each dark and bruised blot felt a blatant wrong to grieving kinsman, each crooked failing line a brazen crime against some mournful dead. Each litany of devastation crafted perfect, and utterly final.

Two candles had burned from wick to stub before he had finished the list he composed for the Archbishop. Many more sputtered and smoked in the dim unending twilight that descended namelessly as he put quill to ink, blending cities changing around him into a grey Ur mausoleum inhabited only by haunting troubled spirits. For those who did not come, for those who sent no messenger, he wrote endlessly, without the serene piety of the scriber monks, without the carefree curiosity of the chroniclers. And from Rouen to Paris to Calais, he put them in unwilling hands, or recited them to stony faces. And now he passed one such folded gingerly across the table, though the man receiving betrayed no sign of sorrow.

“Seigneur de Saint-George,” said Montjoy, recovering easily the locative accent of his childhood, “my Lord Chamberlain.” The man rested the tips of his fingers gently on the sheet of paper, and made no move to unfold it. His frank appraising eyes regarded the herald directly. “Herald of the House of Valois,” he said with some affection, “of the House of Orleans. You seem worse for wear. What words from the Dauphin?”

Montjoy spoke with dark reproach, a faithful recollection of the Dauphin’s freshly simmering anger boiling off each terse word. “Approach the gates of Paris at the head of an army, and they shall be closed, and sword unsheathed to defend them. Advise thee John Valois to disband his following at once, lest it be certain he plan action against the throne, in vile advantage of his countrymen fresh fallen in the fields of Agincourt, his own brothers shallow in their battlefield graves.”

William de Vienna put one hand over his eyes with a meaningful sigh, the other beating a disturbed staccato upon the folded page. “Tell me you did not speak those selfsame words to the Duke’s face,” he said after a moment’s pause. In the deafening silence, the precise clicking of nail on wood continued, and finally, as if exasperated with the sound he did produce, the man swept up the paper and read aloud the first two names in Montjoy’s careful script, “Antoine, Duke of Brabant. Phillip, Count of Nevers.”

With a sudden growl the brawny knight crushed the message and hurled it to the floor, bellowing “God save France!” fiercely enough to set the candle flames shivering. “Would it kill you to keep the Dauphin’s tantrums to himself?” he demanded. “It near killed me to relay them,” Montjoy replied blandly, a ghost of remembered agony sweeping electric down his back. He thought better of mentioning Henry’s letter, stained in his own blood, which he had obediently handed to the Duke alongside the names of the dead.

Past fifty years of age, with salt wind hair and wintry beard, the old knight radiated a deep iron anger as he leaned forward and took the herald’s right arm in his absolute grip, pulling back the sleeve to expose the travel-worn bandaging to the air. Where the Dauphin was fresh roiling steam, where the Duke was a searing open flame, the veteran knight bided like a red-hot blank drawn fresh from the furnace, emanating his displeasure from the grim depths of a molten core.

“England walks the land he claims with impunity, and still we slaver at each other’s throats. We gnaw each other’s bones and make deals with the enemy as it suits him. And you, Montjoy King of Arms, cannot find safe conduct in the camp of his own countrymen,” he said, relinquishing the arm with a furious gesture.

 _And you, right hand of Burgundy, Grand Chamberlain to the Dauphin, again must find fault with your masters, and it must pain you deeply. Those who follow hold out both hands to catch the grace their masters shed. Catch them lest they melt into the_ _muddy ground, whilst the enemy you held so foul gathers it all to himself._

“My Lord had his reasons,” He spoke with respect as he readjusted his sleeve, and the clean honesty demanded for an honorbound man of iron; the absolution was received with a heavy sigh.

“Let me advise you plain, Jacques Herald, because I find you a man of value,” said William, opening one weathered hand with deliberation, “No man shall fault your talent and resolve, nor find your courage wanting. But you are the Valois Herald, not the Armagnac Constable, and a little neutrality will go a long way.”

“Does my Lord find me overtly partial?” The knight studied him with narrowed eyes, as if daring him to jest, but his question had been sincere.

“Jean _sans Peur_ is no less a scion of the great House of Valois than our beloved king. Far be it from your place and preservation to carry this banner of conflict so openly, when it was not so long ago your father spoke with the Duke-Regent’s voice. What stake have you in this familial conflict, that you sooner pay a pound of flesh than soften your master’s ill-considered tone?” Montjoy knelt stiffly to retrieve the crumpled paper at his feet, the acid yawn of torn skin distending his own solemn form of self-flagellation. Gently, he smoothed out its creases, and set it upon the table.

“I am the Valois Herald,” he said, “The letter and the meaning of the spoken word is my bond.”

_So far my king and master, so much my office._

Then, does the world-wise knight put his hand to his head, his expression pained, his stout jaw grinding soundlessly.

_The winds of the world where cousin murders cousin in the daylight howls all around, and those unmarked trees in the forest who do not bend will break. Your meaning is plain, Grand Chamberlain, your lesson not lost on me, yet I the recalcitrant student stands, and do not bend to the fear of breaking._

“You are a thorn in my side, Herald, a line of quartz in the soft seam of negotiation,” William said softly, “and I would pay in gold, not silver, to have you replaced by a softer soul.” He gave the mournful paper to the candle flame, and watched as it flared to ash upon his fingertips unblinking. “The only reason I do not,” he said with finality, “is that a world of blood and fire and men of their word is more to my liking than one of soft and pliable knaves at peace.” He rose from his chair brusquely, a man accustomed to constant action, now taut and hungry from stillness, now sere and prowling caged. “But I am an old and sentimental soldier,” he said, “naught but hot wind and empty words.” Now standing, now pacing, his bulk shrank the room closely, his demeanor shifting. “Now what of England? Ere the conquering Caesar comes, what has his bloody baptism made of him?”  

_It was not he who was baptized but the whole world around him, and now we may see him for who he had always been._

“A keystone uniting fractious English lords. A pious Godly champion of the Church. A beacon of progress for the commons.” _What has not been made of him?_

“Listen to you recite the morning litany,” William rumbled discontent, “stale upon the hundredth breath. Tell me something I do not know. Tell me what we truly lost at Agincourt. Tell me what shall sign this man to his land content and leave us jackals to our familial slaughter.”

Ever so briefly, so unthinking as he pondered the posed question, Montjoy touched the tips of his fingers to the smooth plain surface of the ring upon his left, last finger.

“Nothing less than the throne of France.”

William made the gloomy face of one swallowing bitter medicine. “And so I idle in England, wasting my time, while armies march on Paris from both sides? And this foolish bloodied herald delivers me nothing but the recurring words of a simple man.” His frank frustration called to the herald’s mind a mirrored disillusion, the Archbishop of Bourges with his gaze so piercing, experiencing self-doubt for the first time, and Montjoy found himself holding back a wry internal smile.

_We do not yet know how to listen when Henry speaks, because he speaks plainly. We try to peer past the honesty, and gnash our teeth when we can see only more of the same, ad infinitum._

“Tell me something, herald, I do not know,” said William, looking up from his distant displeasure.  
“I hear Sigismund laughed when he heard the news of Agincourt. I hear again and again of Constance, where England will win Italy and Germany and Hungary with his accord.”  
“Bad news, only bad news with this hungry lion. What of Rouen, of Paris?”  
“The Count has brought his men to Rouen, the Duke his to Paris. They do not meet, as yet, for His Majesty has sent the Dauphin to the city.”  
“His Majesty sees his son in a father’s eyes,” said the old knight, fretting openly. Resolution bloomed, as grey iron, as grey stone, holding up a creaking timber roof against the winter’s hail. “Herald of Valois, will you speak with my voice, upon the king’s pleasure?”

“I shall, my Lord Chamberlain,” Montjoy replied, “but do you speak for the House of Orleans, or the House of Burgundy?” The question did not improve William de Vienna’s mood. Knitting his brows and possessed with fresh direction, he swept past the herald and out the door exclaiming “Jesus wept!” in exasperation, drawing Montjoy into his wake like the hurricane drawing up the churning sea. Around them the household came alive at his barked commands, shattering the still afternoon.

“God help me, I will carve ‘fool’ into your epitaph, Herald. Speak once for the man who sacrificed you onto the pyre and speak again for the man who lit the blaze. Tell Henry England France’s might is not yet spent, nor shall we relent stone and field unlawfully taken. He has spread his wings and shown his claws, and it has brought no small credit to his name, but perhaps now in the bloodied aftermath we may speak of lawful union.” As he fell silent, Montjoy bowed low in answer, and for many moments the only sounds came from the knight’s pugnacious ransacking of a neat writing table. Then William sighed, the temper leaving his voice, and he placed into Montjoy’s careful waiting hand a letter sealed with the arms of Burgundy.

“Take this as a surest expression of our united goal, King of Arms. I am sorry to you, for the Duke’s ill action, I pay you my poor remorse. We are allies yet, _countrymen_ yet, mutual in defense of what remains our throne. What Armagnac shall offer in union is not the same as what shall be offered from Burgundy, nor shall their offers be weighed upon the same scales. Let the young lion think on those terms as he will. Show him no weakness but our largesse. Show him no fear but for his immortal soul. And,” said the old knight giving the herald a significant glance, “show him no anger but our determination.”

*

Church bells were ringing joyous and discordant, as Montjoy returned to the bustling streets. They pealed out some late afternoon hour beneath the overcast skies, rising clarion above the rough susurrus of accented English and the myriad other foreign tongues that thronged the mercantile metropolis. He had eaten at the Burgundian knight’s table, and submitted to his close questioning of the battle state. The experienced soldier had not hidden his dismay, nor his heartache, as he received the herald’s report, but his was a careful inquisition, making up for his own Lord’s vengeful blindness. To him, Montjoy offered names and numbers in detail, deaths and ransom, and from him, received an answer grim as a sunken grave, to a question barely whispered, denying the make and material of a Burgundian crossbow bolt.

_Allies, we are yet, countrymen we are, yet you are lying straight to my face. Still, I understand. For the sake of this war between our Houses, we are all made liars. Only the English hold on to their truth. Their promises._

By the market streets he went, briskly but unhurried, and listened to discussions of prices and produce, of storms and tides and launchings, and the chattering of matrons who by one ear bickered viciously with the traders and by the other gossiped about the imminent return of the king. News of Southampton fresh on their lips they bartered in fresh flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, and yards of cloth in red and gold and emerald green. Though the king’s procession surely could not pass these winding, narrow streets, nonetheless the windows were wreathed in laurel and the roadway spanned with colorful arches that fluttered in the frost-tinged breeze. Only by keen observation could he discern any muted thread of discontent, the wringing worry of the merchant expecting shipments delayed from Harfleur, the wife and mother who cannot abide her empty, quiet home, doubts submerging below the feverfed homecoming preparations. He turned his face in shadow as the whistling of arrows falling in their hundreds filled his ears unbidden, coming over him like a waking dream so real he flinched.  

Down by the water’s edge, he ducked between the hauling laborers and hopped the lopsided rope fences until he spied a familiar face turning about in the sandy courtyard beyond the bridge and portcullis. One hand on his tabard granted Montjoy safe passage past the guarded gates and through the teeming confusion, the English herald hailed him with no small desperation. “Richard,” offered the French herald in greeting, “you have all things in hand I see.” Roused to indignation, the Englishman jabbed at him half-heartedly with his baton, but an appeal was on his lips even as Montjoy sidestepped the advance. “I require a reliable messenger,” he pleaded.

Montjoy looked around theatrically, surveying the frantic activity on all sides of them, not a single ranking herald in sight, and turned back to him with an innocent shrug. “I have seen no more of your English heralds than you,” he said, making to pass the frowning man, who placed a firm hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. “Montjoy, play coy with me any other day, but not today.” Richard glared at him, torn between exasperation and entreaty. Merciless, little inclined to let the Englishman off easily, Montjoy folded his arms across his chest with a challenging smile. “Here I stand in a tabard of the House of Valois,” he said, avowing his office with a straight face, “What say you, Clarenceux King of Arms, to sway me from my given duties?”

Richard rose to the challenge with a glint of steel in his eye. “You think I know you thinly, Montjoy King of Arms? Tell me you are not here to check upon your mount and I shall depart instantly.” When he received no reply but an amused and constant gaze, he bullied on, “And tell me then you should check upon your mount before your duties’ completion? Where to shall you ride, the eve of the triumph? Turn me not away with lies, or never after shall we be friends.”

Nodding reasonably, Montjoy held up his open palms as he said, “Desist, my friend, before you pare away any more of my skin. Tell me what you require.” As surely as he had prophesized the outcome, Richard conjured a stack of neatly bundled missives from about his person, and waving imperiously at a nearby boy, commanded for the herald’s mount to be saddled. “These messages must reach their intended at Eltham by tonight, Montjoy,” he whispered almost conspiratorially, “lest the procession fail to go to plan.”

Montjoy eyed the package thrust at him, and hesitated. “You would ask a Frenchman to guarantee the success of your English triumph? In truth, I do not know if to be flattered or offended.” Richard drew himself up in a masterclass of ruffled dignity, every feather out of place, an eyebrow grandly raised, and proclaimed, “I entrust my efforts to a Royal King of Arms, and a friend besides. Or should I put a coin in any passing soldier’s hand and wave them on their merry way with greater certainty of success? Is this my punishment for calling you a man untouched by sorrows? You know I have repented most sincerely.”

Solemnly, Montjoy expressed the deepest admiration for his performance, so believable as to be genuine outrage, and laughing quietly at his ensuing scowl, finally accepted the messages. “Richard think a moment,” he said, “Shall I locate Lancaster Herald for you instead? Or your own Mortain or Nottingham Herald? What will Guyenne think?” Dark eyes sinking deeper into somber depths, Richard said, “Should you find a single of those hulking traitors fit to ride, I would at that instant hang myself from the White Tower. And you can tell William he is a thrice damned sluggard as well! But look, here is your mount prepared, the hour is getting late and you should ride before it gets dark. Know that I am deeply in your debt. A swift journey I bid you, and a restful night at Eltham, and good day.”

*

Though the road from London to Eltham was for the most part of gentle slant and trodden flat with use, he rode only as swiftly as his aching back relented, and the shallow gloom of wintry evening caught up with mount and rider as they drew upon the palace grounds. The yawning guards took him at face value and the quiet stableboy asked no questions, but entering through the main kitchens he found that caught up in the mealtime rush, the serving staff could not stop to afford him clear directions. Silently, he followed their scurrying, swarming breadcrumb trail up the maze of servant’s hallways to a gleaming portal, cracked by some arcane force into another dimension of searing noise and glittering light. He stood by the seam and stole a glance in over briskly passing shoulders.

Candelabra bathed the hall in sunlit brilliance, a hundred slender flames ablaze; a field of fallen stars dancing to the breath of men as their raised voices became a single sound, and their opulence sparkled in many precious hues. Three tables filled the hall’s interior, two length-wise, flanked by crowded benches, and capped by the high table with its gilded company. His gaze passed over them, fleeting, their distant animated silence unnerving. Warwick and Salisbury, heads together speaking close. Exeter laughing wide, one hand raising his goblet, the other slapping Gloucester on the back. Clarence cupping his chin thoughtfully on one hand, elbow propped upon the table, a still life of infinite age, untouched by commotion. His eyes, turned towards Bedford, skipped lightly past his gesturing brother, resting distant. Orleans, a study in indifference and borrowed finery, slender fingers circling his wine glass restively. He mouths a quiet word to his countrymen, their faces suggesting he speaks the language of his captors. Boucicaut in silence, shoulders stiff with martial dignity, Bourbon ill at ease, his face pale and his fingers trembling, the Archbishop conspicuous by his absence, leaning upon his diplomatic status to disdain the tribute table.

And enthroned at tableau’s center, Henry, King of England, smiling at some faraway jest. His fair hair spun gold in the candlelight, hiding the simple crown he had pushed back from his brow, its  only trace the sparkling winks of crimson and emerald flashing whenever he moved his head. An Apollo in muted garb, his harp abandoned at his feet, a Dionysus presiding at the table’s head, the beating heart of the feast. As Montjoy laid eyes on him, in an instant crystallizing, Henry looked up from his company and, straight through the hidden gap, darkly in shadows recognizing, gave the herald a secret, knowing smile.

 _Though we may sit in Heaven’s kingdom, steeped in glory encompassing, all across the teeming splendor, still your restless eyes find mine._ As the instant shattered into breathless noise, the herald blinked, looking away, and the king turned back to his erstwhile banter. Breathing deep, a heady mix of dark spiced wine and roasting oils and boisterous humanity, Montjoy searched the opposite end of the trestle tables for his intended recipient, and trailing in a servant’s wake, slipped into the roiling surf with barely a murmured tremor of attention.

“If I could beg but a passing moment of your time, my eminent Guyenne King of Arms,” he whispered abruptly by the man’s ear, a looming specter of the shadowed road, as glimpsed by travelers hard beyond the corner of their eyes, and fading by the turn into the cloying dust that clad his clothes. A phantasm of grim certainty, who follows every solitary rider, who keeps every lonely herald company, his materialization by the Englishman’s shoulder made William jerk violently, wine cresting over the lip of his goblet. In the next moment, composure regained, William scowled, “Dear God, Montjoy. What a fright you have given me, as I am certain was your intent. Did you not depart for London this morning?”

Montjoy crouched, drawing level with his shoulder, conscious of his questioning stare. “So I did. And ere this falling twilight I was accosted by one Richard of Clarence in the shadow of the White Tower, who sends you his lowest regard, many choice words, and this fine love letter.” He brought forth the bundle, the topmost missive addressed in a hurried, untidy hand. William’s eyes fell upon it hungrily. “Thank Heavens, I imagined the worst. This message finds me late, and with a curious bearer. Was there not a single English herald in attendance?” Montjoy grinned, low and thin, nearly humorless, “I beg you reassess your college, King of Arms. Do you believe Clarence a master of herding cats? Does he wield some royal imperative against them? He was but a moment’s span from saddling his own horse.”

“And leave a royal triumph in London in the hands of the merchant commons? God forbid such a thing.” Equitably, Montjoy shrugged, and passed him the letter. “Or hence in the hands of a Frenchman. Thus do I consider you plainly in my debt, good friend,” he said, tapping the remaining messages in his hand, “Enjoy your feast. I shall not spoil your wine further with this dust and grime.” As he turned to leave William grabbed his wrist hurriedly, “Come, Montjoy, sit at my place instead. Your burden puts me to shame.”

Montjoy covered the Englishman’s hand with his own, still gloved, the old leather slick and thin at the fingertips and shedding motes of soft English soil, and firmly removed his grip. “Though I am ever a servant of your wishes, William de Guyenne, this task lies upon my promise, and I will see it done.” In a fleeting puff of dust he patted the Englishman on the shoulder reassuringly. “Do not despair on my behalf. Without tabard, without baton, who shall recognize this Frenchman? I promise not to ruin your great triumph.” _In truth, I do not want to eat at this, his table. I am no prisoner of war. I have no appetite for ashes._ The weight of William’s anxious gaze did not abate until he had disappeared back down the servant passage. And his nonchalance notwithstanding, the weight of many more pairs of eyes.

*

He emerged empty-handed and alert into the crisp, clear night, having finally found the remaining royal retainers at their humbler, yet no less lively supper, and then a room to stay a moment and change his clothes. Back into the courtyard, he was alone, the chill of the night mounting fast and steep and chiseling frail, fading mists from his ragged breathing that melted away before they were fully born. Through the shadow of the unlit interior cut the vibrant shafts emitted from the great dining hall like some fearsome draconic god was being born therein, shattering its shell of pure crystal and energy and light and accompanied by the deafening raucous tangle of men, animal and musical caucus. He heard the roaring culmination of some toast roll out in a great tangible burst of sound, striking his face like a gale and passing on to echo about the grounds long after it had subsided within the hollow shell. Unwittingly, the herald’s thoughts jumped to the most likely recipient, remembering him enthroned at the center of the high table that stretched from wall to tapestried wall, arrayed with his greatest lords at his left and right and holding forth in all merriment, the shining draconian god of the triumph.

 _Henry,_ he thought, dressed in crimson as dark and rich as an old roman wine, the modest circlet back on his head, declaiming his own preeminence even as it proclaimed it, the brilliant exultation back in his eye.

_He raises his goblet to his newborn knights, his fledgling Order who think the world of him, who would gladly die for him, and enchants them with grand vistas of their valor. He is humble, charming, humorous, and everyone clamors ferociously for his attention._

The noise from the great hall spilled out into the desolate courtyard, taking on a strange, remote aspect, as if travelling from a great distance. The passing hours had only changed the party’s timbre, taking none of its cacophonous enthusiasm, none of its wild, bucking temper. Silver moonlight touched the building’s eaves with gentle frost, but against the back of his eyelids he remembered the dancing forest of ivory and flame, illuminating animated faces. The dark and hungry gulf of victor and victim gaped wide then, and swallowing his sudden aversion, he turned away, rubbing his hands together in the November chill.

 _That impossibly esteemed attention, which had been so lavished on him._ _Henry_ , he thought, with tangled emotion. Inwardly, he growled at himself as he hung his lantern on a hook besides the stable doors, and pulled one open. _Henry_ , he thought, rain soaked and wild-eyed, faced with an enemy he could not confront, though how hard he tried, screaming at the storm, tense with the brutal birth of the one fear that touched his soul, the one fear that encompassed the world, that God would take from him the chance to be the king he was, the only fear to penetrate that serene sapphire core, within which the herald had seen the confidence biding, securely as a mountain waits for the day of judging. _Henry,_ he thought, and shook it away angry. From the single lantern at the door he lit another and brought it into the darkened building.

*

“Predictable as the rising dawn.” The words floating down the corridor of stalls startled him into dropping the long comb. “A solitary light shines in the stables,” nearer now, but in no hurry, wandering from stall to stall. He felt without seeing the hand that rose to meet each horse in quiet greeting. “Who shuns a feast for a cold wooden stable?” The voice inquired to the soft murmuring silence. He closed his eyes and sighed as the footsteps reached his door, and felt the frank examination linger on his back. “A quiet man and his one possession,” said Henry, gentle and amused.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 1


	20. Kingside Castling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kingside rook draws in its king, making a first move from its appointed place.

“What a poor man I seem to be,” Montjoy replies without turning, holding his breath so finely, so imperceptibly. He keeps his tone light, and even, though it threatens to mutiny; like an unruly mount sensing its rider’s uncertainty, its seethes and trembles and fights for the right to determine its own destiny. In the soft silence, he finds he has to exert all of his control over it. Stiffly, he bends down to pick up the fallen comb, setting his back to the stall gate as it swings open with a telltale creak.

“Come with me, Montjoy. I will give you title and estate.” The dark bay mare lips at the king in suspicion as he steps into the close wooden space, but Henry is not unprepared. Upon an open palm, he proffers her a peace offering. “I have a title,” the herald says, with a smile so forlorn, to the sound of her brisk crunching. His faithful companion betrays him; as a gatekeeper paid in good coin, she approves of the king’s approach with a wet snort. She noses Henry boldly, and from behind his back the king brings forth another apple, winning her approval. “I have an estate,” Montjoy says, running the comb once more through her lashing tail, until he can no longer deny the waiting presence, the imperious gaze.

“Both, my father received from Charles _le Sage_ himself.” He folds his arms and turns around. “Who am I to dishonor him?”

Under his priceless golden crown, Henry is wearing a grin that yearns for the heart, tears at it with its single-minded delight. In his soft opulent garb, he treads the dirty straw uncaring; on his hands, well-fitted, well-worn working gloves that do not match his embroidered formal shoes. _A man of many contradictions, and a man of plain and simple truths._

“A man who disdains my table for this,” Henry’s expression belies his reproach. He gestures all around them, to the rough, spare walls and the stained rushes underfoot. His mischievous grin challenges the herald. “Nothing passes his jaded eye and retains its value, not thrones nor kings nor battlefields. Except this one precious thing, his dark horse of royal lineage.”

 _Who shuns a feast for a cold wooden stable? No,  
__Who shuns a feast thrown in his name for a cold wooden stable_?

“Your Majesty,” he begins, and hesitates, and falls silent, a wealth of words left unspoken. He can think of a hundred answers to the gentle mockery, proud, or sly, or self-effacing, and had it been any other man he would have known which retort matched, without thinking. In a manner of suffering, he cannot choose, and does not speak.

“A man could be envious of you,” Henry laughs as he addresses her instead. He is not the type to talk to animals, but the novelty amuses him. The sound of his voice draws her unblinking attention. Her mane falls liquid through his gentle fingers, painstakingly smooth. “What diligent care you enjoy.” The notion is ridiculous enough to make the herald smile. _In what manner of world shall a King envy a horse?_

“Who leaves the high seat of the feast empty to come envy a horse?” Montjoy murmurs to himself. _Like an altar with no cross. Like a shield with no device._ _It is wrong to be so empty._  
“Ha,” with his thirsty smile Henry welcomes his opposition at last. He wants nothing more than to win something tangible from the herald, and he knows, given enough time, he will. “The high seat is mine to leave as I please. It is far more natural for a man to envy what is not his.”  
“Three hundred horses came over the Channel with your Majesty. A thousand more remained at Calais.” He is keenly aware of Henry’s meaning, even as he chooses to misconstrue it. The King’s knowing look turns his face aside, guilty and unrepentant.  
“Have you been counting, dear Herald?” Henry teases.  
“I shall not hold mine up to those in comparison,” he frowns, ignoring the question most deliberately.

_She is nothing on the destriers worth more than a man’s life. All our fine Lords may have gone to the knife, but these, their mounts, survive._

“Charles gave you a wild horse,” the king points out, “In his eyes, a poor one.”  
“My liege did not care which horse was given.” In distant recollection, he knows the truth. _He simply gave an order, as kings do._ “His stablemaster did not much like the look of me.”  
“But now you make of him an envious man.”

Against his own inclination, Montjoy laughs quietly as the dour Frenchman is called to mind. Every year he is asked to exchange her for a younger mount, so she may be bred, her lines passing, but every year to the stablemaster’s frustration he declines, unable to relinquish his devotion. Even though he knows he should. The herald leans his weight against his faithful horse, her warm bulk familiar and comforting, and she supports him in a calm, habitual way. “He is not envious but _contemptuous_. What a fool he sees, clinging so stubbornly to his fine breeding stock, though he offers many others younger and faster in her stead.”

“And what of duty?” Henry jokes, baiting him with precision. “Shall you scorn a swifter mount to its detriment?” Montjoy lifts a cool gaze in answer, chilled by the winter’s wind that howls past for one long heartbeat. He finds in Henry’s warm tone, the word worse than a torturer’s iron, branding him without mercy. He holds the keening agony to his heart, so that it may drown out the craving, but it is no match for the sound of heartache.

“I counted,” he says lightly, setting down comb for brush. He works methodically across her coat, in a rhythm rendered instinctive by long experience. Henry is content to watch him, he leans against the stall door nonchalant. “Of course I counted. William Bruges asked me for the count, at battle’s end. Richard Spenser asked.” The words crested and broke quiet, a soft slumbering sea only hinting at sadness. _I counted horses living, and dead men. Of course I counted. Who else but me?_ “My liege asked, in Rouen. The Dauphin asked. The Count of Armagnac. The Count of Charolais. The Grand Chamberlain.” The brush falls suddenly from his frozen fingers, and he presses his lips together tightly, aware that he has said too much. Under the low stable roof, in the shadowy lantern-lit twilight, he has mistaken his company for John, or Louis, and relaxed too soon. But Henry has heard every word. “But not the Duke of Burgundy,” he says thoughtfully.

“Let me deliver your Majesty’s messages,” the herald replies, an unblinking stillness descending, recovering his formality as he recovered his brush. With a warding gesture, Henry denies him. He knows the stiff decorum frustrates the King.

“Not a single word,” Henry commands, one-half stern, imperial, one-half lapsing melancholic in the newfound silence. Montjoy sketches a wordless bow. The act is ridiculous in the close confines of the stall, he feels, vaunting theatrical, prompting him to laugh silently at himself. But the gesture is not viewed by Henry under the same fair light, and the king takes on a gloomy, discontented aspect in the face of it. Reflexively, he reaches up to run his hand through his hair, but the seated crown prevents the action’s completion. “A moment’s respite,” he murmurs, distracted by his own ornamentation. “Is that too much to ask? A single moment—”

_I see the high chair chafes, and the ceremony encumbers. The soul of adoration consumes itself, and still it hungers. In your presence, they feast, and on it. Remember that it was not I, who spoke first of duty._

The herald turns away to resume his careful combing, humming quietly as he works. “ _No sia per vos amat,_ ” He sings a simple song for the long and lonely road, its single melody repeating, and infinitely soothing. True to his intent, it sets Henry at ease. “ _Mes val cel c’avetz privat, Jana delgada.”_ The king recognizes the language of southern France, but he cannot decipher the meaning. He smiles to see both mount and rider relax to the round lingering syllables of the familiar tune, and understands Montjoy’s efforts, as far as he can, he receives the offered moment wholly. He cherishes it with his reverent silence.

“ _No jaga ab vos el lit,”_ Holding the comb in his last two fingers, the herald patiently unravels a knot, serene as a man submerged, removed from the passage of time, from a world of worries. Upon the winding road, somewhere between one duty, and the next, a form of deliverance can be found. As long as your mind does not wander ahead, and does not stray behind. “ _Mes vos y valra l’amich, Jana delgada._ ” He looks up at Henry as he ends the verse, and flashes a smile, for the first time, unguarded. In the span of a second it comes and goes, leaving the King wondering. “What does it mean?”

“Troubadours,” Montjoy shrugs, showing a casual conviction-free disdain, “It is about a girl.” When Henry makes a beckoning gesture, keenly curious, the herald translates for him. “ _There is another who loves you,_ ” he hums tentatively, trying out the words, but they match the melody so imperfect, and he frowns as he hears it for himself. “ _So much more, your secret friend, delicate Joanna._ ” Neither the English nor the Catalan the language of his birth, nor music his talent, in his fumbling attempt it loses its easy rhyme, its careless freedom, and he hesitates over the second verse.

_“Find your love, in another,_  
_Secretly more, than any other,  
_ _Gentle Joanna.”_

Unconstrained by knowledge of the original and blithely remaking the meaning as he saw fit, Henry offers him the verse entire, in his sweet and confident voice. Effortlessly, he captures it, though the story is transformed, he grasps at the ephemeral essence of the song, plaintive and supplicating. He grins merrily at the herald’s subdued wonder.

“While my father languished in France, I learnt poetry and painting and song at Richard’s court.” The remnants of some remembered happiness echoes from the distant past, chiming like church bells in the still early morning, leaving the King resounding hollow. _Sounds like Henry Bolingbroke would have found such feckless pursuit wanting. Sounds like the season of war begot by his return would have ended all that on the instant._

“My father forbade my mother from speaking the language of her birth,” he says, abandoning the remainder of the viadeira in the harsh and unforgiving light of memory. He will not offer comment on the state of either court, French or English, wartorn as they were, consumed by practical ambitions. “But he did not forbid her from singing.” _She taught me this, the one legacy she left solely for me. A base lyric for the common traveler, rendered more sacred than all the songs of the Lord._

“Where then, did you learn the Occitan?” _Not quite right, but close enough._  
“From Guillem Aragón King of Arms.” From a cheerful, carefree man who spoke the dozen languages of the peninsula, and a dozen more besides. The heralds of the Crown of Aragón had few rules and fewer restraints, in direct result of which, he had found, they were generally happier and more relaxed than their continental fellows.  
“From what I know of your father,” Henry says with a wry smile, “I find it strange he would forbid your mother from teaching you a useful language.”

 _What do you know of my father?_ He realizes he has said more to Henry of his father than to his own master, and instantly as the thought occurs, he wonders which king thus had better understanding of the old man. _Charles_ , he thought, _who saw him as his father’s herald? Or Henry, who sees him as this herald’s father?_ With an inward smile he discovers the point is moot, viewing as he was from his own irretrievably compromised perspective.

“He had his irrationalities,” Montjoy offers pensively. _We stop being children for the first time when we realize how regrettably human our parents are. We only become adults when we forgive them for their flaws._ “He had his true love, and it was not my mother.” He can say it aloud without trembling, but he cannot help the bitterness that spears him in a familiar vulnerability. There in a shaded clearing, all surrounded by weeping willows, watered from a sorrow that flows sourceless and endless and eternal, Henry meets him with recognition, and understanding, because this tragedy is none too surprising, nor uncommon.

“Eltham was ever my father’s house,” Henry remarks, “His favorite. Here, at this Chapel, he betrothed his great love, Queen Joanna.” _Take not a false husband, Jana delgada, I love you so much more._

“True fortune, to have had one, and not to lose anything for it,” Montjoy whispers, finishing off the grooming routine at the base of his mount’s neck.

The herald strokes her white blaze affectionately, but lulled to drowsy indolence by the gentle brushing she snorts and shakes off his hand. She is comfortable, and sleepy, and seeking solitude, she chases away her master with a nudge. _Look there, the King_ , he tries to tell her, _he is standing in the door. Push him out of the way, not me. What can I do? I can only wait for him to grow bored. I can only wait for him to be satisfied._ He eyes Henry surreptitiously, who shows no sign of either, who has no iota of desire for the abandoned feast. The King is considering him with interest. In the single lantern’s flickering glow his crown is a warm and muddied sun, his eyes are a cloudless sky, simple in their sincerity, deeper than eternity. They do not disdain the dirt and the smell and the chill that hangs whitely in the air. They want something worth more than general ceremony, than common adulation. _Fearsome want, and desperate need. So desperate._

“You have clearly forgiven your father.” The herald gives him a neutral shrug, but he is shivering internally. _Perhaps I have._  
“But my brother Phillippe did not. Even now, I suspect he does not.” _I know he does not. Because stubbornness runs in this family._  
“Where is he now?”

“I cannot know for sure,” Montjoy sighs as he draws long strands out from the comb’s teeth, “He does not send word—news comes only in pieces.” _When it comes, if it comes. From friends with eyes so sympathetic. Do they know how their sympathy burns? How can they, when still I listen like a starving man tearing at dry bread._ Each dark strand he pulls at fitfully, he recalls. “Fighting hand-to-hand in the streets of Thessalonica. Defending the walls of Constantinople. Captured by Ottomans at Gallipolli.” A hair snaps in his fingers with a sharp retort, and he inspects his trembling fingertips with detached surprise, “Skirmishing with pirates in Rhodes, Knight Commander in the Knights Hospitaller.”

_He survived the Ottoman camps. He earns himself the right to be called Phillippe of Rhodes._

“He sounds most formidable,” said Henry, gently but firmly taking the comb away, stilling the herald’s hands in his. “Fear not for him.” The king’s grasp is warm and sturdy, but the herald draws away as if scalded; has to turn his face away as he gasps sharply, “I do not fear for him. I would not speak of him.”

_He will die in distant foreign lands, and his brothers-in-arms will bury him. And his brother will mourn him when he hears, fourth-hand, if he hears, months later. Mourn a memory many years old._

“He made his choice a long time ago.”  
“My herald,” says Henry so calmly, it feels like truth, like steel laid bare, and as unyielding. _Hear that?_ _The sound of this world crumbling._ It shall not end in fire and blood, it shall not go in a storm or flood. Quietly, the sweetest sound simply unmakes it. “Not so,” he murmurs, changing nothing. He has a promise writ in gold. No king of England, if not king of France. He wears it though it damns him. He feels it now, wrapped around his finger.

“Tell me,” says Henry, demanding. _No.  
_ “Why?” Montjoy asks, clenching his hands, embarrassed, “What import has it?”

“Because you are not alone in this world.”

In mirror-bright eyes, lake-deep and sky-blue, the herald sees him for the first time.

“Because I want you to know, you are not alone in this world.”

 _Very well.  
_ Empty-handed, he takes a fearless step forward. He must act, before the moment passes.

_Very well, let this world end.  
_ _Let us meet in the next._

He surprises the king with his sudden embrace, heart howling, breath still. Henry holds his gaze, fleeting and forever, it pours into him, searing and unguarded, the truth. He smiles, secret and sideways, a smile for no one else. A gift so individual, so unique, it makes all other things the same. Through cloth and flesh and bone, their hearts find the same rhythm, a wild and thrashing beat reaching out for a kindred soul, letting its partner know, letting the desperation show.

_In this time and place, forget family, forget duty, forget fate._  
_Shirk everything, lose everything. It cannot come into the next.  
_ _Empty handed and innocent into the next._

The king wraps his arm around the herald’s neck, drawing him close. He is kind, and he is gentle, he gives one last reprieve. One more offer of surrender. Once more this frail and worthless trunk for ransom. One last chance to regret nothing. Here he is. Fair-haired, blue-eyed and utterly beautiful. Empty-handed, the herald grips him tight and kisses him. Until his lungs hurt, his lips ache. Until he feels every scar, every wound, every strain, and they flare and burn deep and die away again. Here is a King of all England, reduced in an instant, human in a heartbeat, and embracing him as if his life depended on it. In the world new-made, he has nothing but his soul, and gives it wholly. Until the very instant he pulls away panting, he is not alone in the world.

 _It feels just like dying._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Listen to the Viadeira here!: https://youtu.be/qh49T2_Ui98?t=40
> 
> Version: 2


	21. Shiver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No sympathy for the suffering.

 

 _Shiver, in the close warmth of your body_. Laurel leaves lingering on Henry’s brow, charging the air with its bitter scent, a paen for Nike, a prayer for Victoria, in all her hundred names. A priceless golden crown fallen in the straw, and forgotten, as fingers clench in his hair, possessing. In his sure embrace, a swordsman’s strength, an archer’s stability. And pure imperial prerogative. In his beating heart, a wordless promise from the soul, passing through a medium that cannot hope to contain its meaning, and losing so much, yet still it tries to speak to its equal. Still it reaches out across an infinite gulf of physical space even as its spirit attenuates.

 _Shiver, as ten thousand wailing souls descend upon me._ This, the man, with clear blue eyes on ploughed field and brooding sky. This, the man, marching the weary and hungry and sickly forward, unafraid, risking all he has, all he is, on grey goose feathers and long wooden stakes. A man who remakes the world as he sees it. A man who breaks the world all to pieces. On his lips, a fervent lover’s need, hungering desire, wanting and needing. On his hands, smooth rich leather, worn and moulded to his fingertips, soft and luxurious on bare skin. He only pulls closer, only holds tighter. Only kisses harder with each heartbeat. _Oh Lord, on this cross, I will break. Beneath this crown, I will bleed. Take this cup from me._

 _Shiver, as all around I hear my father’s voice, I hear my king’s voice. They speak. One speaking through the other, but which is which?  
_ The new world is all stormy sea and broken ship, all howling winds, and fell fires in the sky. The sails burn with emerald flame, the captain’s wheel spins freely. It is untenable. It is all breaking heartache. It is impractical. It is all sweet searing emotion.  
 _I will revel in it, even as I drown in it. Hush, I hear him. Henry. The newborn world has only room for you and me, heart to heart and body to body. It is temple and altar. It is revelation and epiphany._  
It is a lonely child’s dreaming glimpse of paradise. It is nothing real, nothing tangible. It is nothing but an empty-handed promise of eternity.

 _With a single glance, it is made real.  
_ And it remains real, only for a single heartbeat. Turn back, sleeping child. There is always a way home, for him who seeks it.  
 _By his single touch, it is reaffirmed.  
_ And he is the King of England.  
 _He is who he is.  
_ Turn back, erring child. There is always a way home, you only have to walk it.  
 _He receives, and he gives. His promise, I shall believe.  
_ His promise is writ in blood and bone. His promise is a crucifixion all its own. You will not breathe by it, live by it. You can only die by it.  
 _The road home is long. I have to walk it alone.  
_ Turn back, lonely child. He is the King of England.  
 _He is._

The very instant Montjoy pulled away panting, he was newborn in the old world, newly brimming, newly hollow. “Henry,” he said, backing away uncertainly. Voices clamored in his mind, but into the yawning void his heart was screaming. Without words, it filled him up with its shrieks. “I am here,” Henry said, reaching out for him, but the herald slipped through the closing grasp. He folded his arms against his chest, and closed his eyes so tight, so hotly denying, lifting his face heavenward, so sinfully aching.

Sensing something was wrong, his horse snuffled softly. She turned around to nudge him with her nose, ears pricking and nostrils flaring wide, blowing his fringe crooked. The sound of cracking straw under her feet prickled in the uneasy silence. He put a hand on her neck to calm her, but his fingers were trembling. “Come here,” said Henry, “you are shivering.” He opened his eyes to look, but the king’s sweet sincerity was sunlight searing, forcing him to turn his head away with the pain of it. Henry, whose radiant joy must bank at the herald’s torn expression, offered him one open, outstretched palm.

“ _Come_ ,” he said, “else cut out my heart, but God’s breath! Do not leave me like this.” Shuddering with the aching effort of it, the herald shook his head roughly. The world shook with it. It yaws wildly as the storm blows through. It screams with a soundless rage. He bites his lip, drawing blood fiercely; thinking the taste of iron will ground him. By earth and iron, he can remake the world entire. Blood and steel, he remembers. With his hands clenched so tight, he can feel the hard truth encircling his left, last finger, digging into his skin, more painful than any torturer’s grip. _One step back and two steps forward, straight off the edge into the abyss._

“Once I believed,” he said, lifting a forlorn gaze straight to the heart of the King, “I would die before I would be forsworn.” He touched his right hand to his mouth, and it comes away bloody, but he looks right through it. “Now I see, I was never truly tested.” _Now I see how little my word is worth. How it breaks so cleanly beneath the storm._ “I turn back.” He eked out every word in a whisper that takes his soul as payment. “But I cannot see my way home.”

_I hang upon your crucifix, and I regret nothing. But I do not live there, in that new world._

“Try me no more, King of all England.” _If you call my name just once, I will be lost. If I look back just once, I will be but salt and ashes._ “I must find my way home.” Head bowed, he tried to pass, and Henry grasped his arm. For a single, hushed moment, their shoulders brushed by, their cheeks again touching. “This is no trial but my confession,” he said, soft and honest and unrelenting, “Your way home, dearest Herald, lies not behind you, but ahead,” and then released him into the cool, darkening night. _But I will wait for you to realize. I will wait._ Montjoy did not look back as he left the circle of lantern light and disappeared into the musty gloom of the aisle.

*

_I remember the night sky, star-filled and boundless. The river running silver bright, murky in the pale moonlight, and shrouded in stems. In its clear shallows, the slippery uncanny shapes of entwining lissome alien things, starting scared at every shadow passing overhead._

Beyond the circle of flickering firelight, there was nothing but the snuffling of tired horses, fronds waving watery in the fitful wind, and the whirring, clicking, chirping of a busy insectile universe, carrying on its ways unseen. The still air was bitterly cold. In the silence like a world all underwater, damp logs crackled and spat and complained, and smoke climbed languidly in thin reverential tendrils up to the sparkling sky. Two heralds sat by fireside, one English and burly, who sat shirtless, cross-legged, huddled in the cloak thrown over his shoulders; one French and thin, who knelt, poring over a letter, steadily dripping. Their gloves and boots, soaking wet, lay abandoned by the shallow firepit.

“You are shivering,” said John, who had been Exeter Herald before he was Lancaster Herald. He was pointedly ignored, the brooding silence sharply accusatory. “Come here,” he said, beckoning.  

“No,” Montjoy replied with annoyance, “I am trying to read.” Defiantly, he wrapped his arms about himself as he studied the paper. John Herald strained his eyes valiantly in the smoky amber gloom, but he could barely make out where one sentence began and another ended. Some immaculate hand had densely populated the poor page with little regard for reading space, and a dozen or more similarly covered were yet stacked behind the topmost. In the flickering light, the words writhed and bled and cannibalized each other head and tail, defying interpretation, but even without knowing their substance John felt keenly the fine expectant pressure that emanated from the writer, straight from the nib to the heart of things.

“Where does your father find the time to write so many pages?” he lamented. Montjoy shot him a warning glance over the top of the letter, sharp enough that he put up both hands with exaggerated contrition.  
“You may be so disparaging of me,” said the French herald thinly, “but not my father.”  
“You mistake me sorely,” John said, “I cannot help but admire a man who writes so much so small and finely. Does he advise his fool son not to freeze to death anywhere in that chronicle?” Riled up, the young herald flourished the page and pointed angrily at it.  
“Oh yes! Here he writes, do not ford over deep mud. And right here, only _fools_ ford at night in January.” John shrugged. He knew this ire well. Behind its caustic veneer, it was gentle, and did not perturb him in the slightest.  
“How was I to know the bottom was so soft?”  
“We could have camped on the far side, and forded in the morning!” The Englishman drew back in genuine horror.  
“And ride all day soaking wet and freezing? Perish the thought.”  
“My God, perish your grumbling. Leave me alone.” As the young man ground his teeth in frustration and turned his back to his mentor, John crept up behind him and embraced him, drawing the cloak closed about them both. Despite his stubbornness, Montjoy was shivering fiercely, and into the warm encirclement subsided begrudging. He was absorbed in the letter, his gaze moving steadily along the crawling script.

“How is your brother?” John asked, his eyes closing tiredly as they leant against each other, back to chest, chin to shoulder. The question brought the same nagging sadness; he had learnt swiftly not to specify which one. In the same breath, they could not be spoken, like oil and water, lest he stirred up all of the stored-up pain, and let his solemn student taste of it again. The context was enough to place the subject, and if it was not, he would have said nothing instead.  
“I haven’t read up to that point yet,” Montjoy admitted, and the Englishman heaved a deep sigh.  
“Would it hurt the old man to put that news first?”   
“Are you implying our family is more important than the throne?” said his charge, softly acerbic. “Yes, I believe that would actually physically hurt him. Besides, he knows I shall read all he wrote. What does it matter where he put what?” He shuffled with some difficulty to the next page, his bare hands stiff and clumsy in the cold. “Even if I can’t see you, I can feel you rolling your eyes at me.”

“It matters not at all,” said the Exeter herald, “and yet it matters a great deal.”  
“A fine way to say exactly nothing,” came the snapped response, swift enough and heated enough that John knew he had hit a nerve.  
“What does he go on about for so many pages then?”  
“Many things. Royal largess for all the great houses. Recent acquisitions of Louis d’Orleans,” Montjoy murmured distractedly. “John d’Burgundy’s yearly income. The details of the Queen’s pregnancy--”  
“My God, Spare me!” John cried out. “Your father’s love for details is more befitting a historian than a herald.” His charge looked back over his shoulder, his gaze curious, his pupils yawning wide in the darkness.  
“You mean to say you do not know the yearly income of your Lord of Exeter?”  
“What?” He was perplexed by the question, and bemused at the matter-of-fact way it had been asked. “How would I know such a thing? Should I interrogate his bookkeepers? Should I count his sheaves of wheat and his heads of sheep? Why would I even care to know?”

The young man sat up and considered the question gravely. Half-turned, his profile is vivid against the crackling flame, one eye dark-grey, one eye lake-blue, lost in distant thought. In the dancing firelight, his long fingers cast a host of slender shadows, a grim procession that creeps inexorably across the damp and muddy ground towards the oblivion beyond the light, every figure growing ever taller, stretching ever thinner into nothingness. His hair is slicked back and shining, from where he has run wet fingers absently through it, or from the spray kicked up by his horse as they waded ankle-deep, then knees, then waists, through icy water. He sits rigidly, formally, though his lips are trembling from the cold; his back is straight. Deep in contemplation, he forgets his freezing fingers and toes. He has been careful not to let a single drop touch the precious paper he holds. John Herald felt a sudden tsunamic pang of sympathy wash over him, stealing his breath away with shocking force. This honest and hardworking youth will get eaten alive by the waking world, he knows. He cannot be allowed to be this way.

“Well,” Montjoy began, coming to his conclusions oblivious of the scrutiny, “For example—” John cut him off by grasping his arm and pulling him back, close enough to lean forward and kiss deeply. Though surprised and therein annoyed, the young herald leaned into his caress. His affection had been hard won, but once obtained, endured constantly, and could be counted on. “Have you been listening at all?” Montjoy whispered, breathless, as they pulled apart fractionally.

“For example,” John whispered back, “you think far too hard and you care far too much for a simple herald.” He ached beneath the weight of sympathy. “Leave the details to the Kings and Lords, and let us poor working men live simply. A life with purpose, and without complexity.” His sincerity made the younger herald laugh aloud, and mock his old age, his wistful melancholy, but when John folded his papers up and tossed them aside and bore him down in the tangling folds of the cloak he did not resist, but smiled innocently.

*

In the lee of the stable walls, he leaned up against the rough wooden planks and looked dazedly down at his hands, then up at the clear, cloudless night sky. _Dearest John, advise me. Now I understand. Now I wish to live simply. Is it too late?_ Across the courtyard’s silent silver span, the feast carried on in its intensity, showing no sign of its heart languishing empty; its cling and clatter pinwheeling freely up to the heavens, an arrow of vibrant, dying man shot brazenly at eternity. He watched as two figures emerged from the entrance hall and came across the vast expanse of empty, scoured sand, their swaying progress betraying the influence of strong wine. It was only when their faces were illuminated in the light cast by the single lantern he had lit at the stable’s entrance that he thought fleetingly, belatedly, of escape. By then, it was too late. They had seen him, and bore directly for him, and regardless of his painful preoccupation he stood up straight to greet them with a shortened bow.

“My Lords of Bedford and Gloucester.”

 _First the eldest, now the youngest come to mock a poor herald, stealing away from their own table, their own luxurious repose. Dear God, why do they come from their lavish plates restless and hungry?_ He pictured the high table now, three seats gaping open, empty, and obvious. Perhaps the remaining son of Henry Bolingbroke has moved into the central chair to continue his quiet musings, or perhaps now he finds he must entertain as the host of the party. _Does he wonder where his brothers have gone, or is he gladder in the absence of their company?_

The Dukes moved smoothly to either side of him, their regard cold and their manner mean, raising the hair on the back of his neck. High color bloomed on lean Plantagenet features, freeing a wolfish wildness in their bleak soldiers’ eyes. _Robert_ , he thought helplessly, a dark memory rising unbidden, the Englishman’s tall shadow, shading him in an instant, drawing a knife in his defense, _Here comes two, not three. But these two have no need for secrecy. If they will, they will have me._ Something hung in the air between them, heavy and writhing, birthed in strong wine and born to the hunt. With their leering glares alone, they backed him into the darkness of the narrow channel between stables and carriage house, where he was trapped.

“Henry nowhere in sight,” said John, Duke of Bedford, baring his teeth in a smile that froze the blood of his cornered quarry, “but here is a man I recognize.” Without warning, his brother grabbed the front of Montjoy’s shirt and shoved him up against the wall. Cheek to cheek and eye to unblinking eye, Humphrey asked, “Without your tabard, do you feel afraid, Herald?”

 _Finally, a simple question._ Montjoy looked at each brother in turn, neutrally, and took a deep breath. He pressed his palms against the stable wall. He could try to put them on the English Duke’s arm, but he knew the fierce and choking grip would relent him nothing. _Did you deserve it?_ Down his back and over his arms, his skin crawled. _Yes, I deserved it. Oh, yes._

“Should I, my Lord?” he replied. Humphrey barked a laugh once, twice, short and snarling, devoid of humor, and abruptly he planted his knee in the herald’s stomach, folding him in two over it. The blow knocked the breath from his lips and the pain made his knees buckle. He would have fallen, but he was slammed back against the stable side by the Duke of Gloucester. “Forget my title and my seat,” Humphrey hissed, “Forget my high blood’s royalty. With my bare hands, I could kill you now and sleep soundly. You should fear me.” Gasping for air, the herald stared down his hungering gaze.

_Humphrey of Lancaster. Youngest of four brothers, and each one only more powerful, only more intimidating. How will you live up to them all?_

“Were you afraid when you fell at Agincourt?” he asked, eyes full of sadness, “When Henry stood over you and challenged all comers?” Gloucester reared back as if struck, and made a disgusted sound in his throat. “You haughty French,” he snarled, throwing the herald to the ground. “So proud in your weakness.” He stood over him, and in the narrow black space, only his eyes caught the distant lantern light, shining with cold rage. “We Englishmen will teach you to mock our rights,” with each huffed word, the Duke kicked him without mercy, in the chest, in the back, in the head, as he tried hopelessly to stand under the assault. “We will teach you manners.” The loose sand skittered, twinkling in the twilight, filling up his mouth with grit, tracing weeping lines across his skin. “We will teach you the meaning of fear.” He put his hands around his head, giving up. He hunkered down and endured every blow silently.

When John finally pulled his panting brother aside and dragged Montjoy up by his collar, there was fresh blood on his lips and in his hair, but his expression was calm. “You think Henry will save you now?” asked the forbidding English Duke, eyeing his placid composure with open dislike. Through a red mist descending, Montjoy smiled, though he knew it would infuriate his tormenters. He does not mean to but he cannot help himself. “No,” he breathed softly, “no.”

_Questions so simple.  
_ _Isn’t it enough that I have known of him—and known him?  
_ _Isn’t it enough that I have been beloved by him—and loved him?_

“But it will be an honor to die by your hand,” he said. Frowning, and waving his seething brother back, John gripped the herald by the shoulder, where the scarlet has already begun to spread, and pound by aching pound he pressed stiff fingers vice-like into the bloody seam, wringing out a low keening moan with martial precision.  
“What are you here for?” Bedford demanded.  
His voice was trembling, but his eyes were clear and direct. “I am a herald of the House of Valois,” Montjoy said through halting gasps, bending beneath his excruciating touch.  
“Do you think that matters to me?” John of Lancaster did not burn white-hot like his sibling. He had the dark oppressing edge of a blackened blade. His eyes bored, and his spirit pressed against the throat. Lean like Thomas, aristocratic like Humphrey, he had Henry’s biding iron strength but he did not have Henry’s easy majesty.

_The third son, lacking the charm and good looks of the youngest, lacking the saturnine elegance of the second. It turns a fine man dour and bitter. It makes him work harder._

“It matters little,” the herald said, “or it matters a great deal.” _Simple questions, simple answers.  
_ “Care, brother,” said Humphrey, as he pulled his gloves on tighter. “This one will speak you into submission, like he did our brothers and uncle.”  
“My Lords,” Montjoy said tiredly, dropping his gaze. _If those words I offered to the Duke of Exeter did not satisfy, then I have nothing more. Nothing left._ “Mercy on a simple herald. I have nothing that shall appease you.” Hollow and aching, he met Bedford’s narrowing gaze with a complete lack of understanding, and he held up his empty hands all bloodstained. “I have no answer I have not already given.”  
“It is no simple herald that catches Henry’s eye,” Bedford replied. “Or stays within so constantly. It is for no simple herald that he disdains a seat at the feast. Explain this.”  
“I cannot,” he said with soft finality, shattering their patience.

Their fury unbridled was a divine storm, a raging sea, engulfing him and churning him up so casually. He cried out in agony as old wounds tore open and new ones crunched, and broke and bled under the skin. He was silenced in anguish as every breath was thrashed out, and his mouth and nose and throat filled up with blood so steadily. When they hauled him up to his knees again, he had to blink away the swirling motes of darkness and cough out the bitter taste of iron before he could raise his head, before he could even think straight. Pain pierced him in waves as steadily as his heart beat.

_It is an honor to die by your hands, but it is not easy._

“Confess, and this will end,” Humphrey offered, crouching down to grasp his chin and search his swollen face. In his captive grip, the herald showed no recognition of his voice but a fatalistic serenity.

_The world spins slowly, and the dying man decides what his last words will be. And what shall be written on his epitaph. It is fool. It is deserving. This is no trial, but my confession._

“Were you afraid at Agincourt?” he asked, spilling blood from his mouth numbly. “When Henry gave you his confession?” _When Henry made of you his brilliant image?_

Both English Lords had to crouch on their heels and lean in close to hear his choking whisper. He does not give them time to answer the question. Through broken lips he spoke to the still air. “Such outward things dwell not in my desires,” he said, to the dark distances, as they came inexorably over him. The specter of familiarity gave the Englishmen pause, and they exchanged questioning glances. He does not give them time to repeal his confession. In heaving liquid coughs, he spoke to the shivering silence. “But, if it be a sin to covet honor,” he said, to the encroaching fog, as it began to take away his senses. Something moves across their faces. Some remembered sunlight. _The Oxford scholar, handsome and accomplished, worshipful of his eldest brother. The battle-tested Knight, his hands in fists, his eyes in anger._ They looked to their honor in Henry’s name, and with Henry’s words, the herald tested them. He does not give them time to refuse. With wide-eyed deference, the herald spoke to the shade of the king.

“I am the most offending soul alive,” he said, to the younger brother, whose gaze flickered away for a split second; to the elder brother, whose rage surged forward in answer.   
“My God, your tongue is glib,” John growled, “You stupid fool. Do you even understand what is at stake?”

_Something more valuable than life._

Montjoy flinched as Bedford raised his clenched fist, but in wet red whispers, he spoke to the endless sky. “Let me speak proudly,” he said, to the crumbling world, as it went in pain and silence. The words do not come easily, but he persevered, syllables stumbling. The blow descends through another man’s eyes, he thinks. It breaks across another man’s cheek, he feels. It does not end him yet, but the next one will, or the next. Into the electric agony, he spoke without regret. “I am a herald of the House of Valois,” he said, and on the last word, his voice failed. He could not find the strength to speak. He could barely breathe, the gasps coming raggedly. _It does not matter. Everything has been said at last._

Humphrey turned his eyes to the sky, faintly searching for something, but still John raised his bloody fist. Bright-eyed and breaking, the herald looked up into his destiny.

_Will I resent you for loving your brother? I will not._

*

 _I remember riding, fields swaying by. In sweltering sunlight, they are violet and crimson and brilliantly gleaming gold, they are every color of God’s palette, and his standard in a hundred vibrant quarters. I ride, and though my mount is inferior, slower, heaving, he churns the dusty road into a blur and leaves all footsore travelers behind. Faster, I urge the poor thing, faster, because I am going home_. _By the clarion chiming of monastery bells, I find my way home._

“I made this for you,” he said carelessly, but in truth he was watching like a hawk for the herald’s reaction. With solemn ceremony, Montjoy accepted the gift, running gentle fingertips over its rough, scored surface. “What is it?” he asked, and laughed, not unkindly, at his brother’s crestfallen expression. “I jest, I’m sorry.” The resemblance was there, hewn in painstaking imprecise strokes. Four stubby legs leaping boldly out, the curving suggestion of a graceful back, a proud arching neck and two fine pointed ears on a rounded muzzle.

He can see, as clearly as if it were right before him, his youngest brother in his favorite hiding spot, couched in the natural seat of an ancient arboreal giant long since diverging at its base, his tongue hanging out as he worked the hard wood in his hands, ignoring the distant calls of his minder. “It is a treasure,” the herald said, sketching a bow. “And I am duly impressed. But look at your hands,” he sighed. Still chubby with youth, still soft and unlined, they were covered in scratches and pits and not a few deep cuts. “You should be more careful.” _You were made for the book. For the crimson robe and the gentle quill. Not for the sword, or the long and winding road. Not for our hard lives._ It hung between them, unsaid, and stubbornly, Mattheiu turned away from him. From the window seat in the curtained alcove, his half-brother could see straight along the back of the house and into the encroaching woods, with its burbling stream and its cool, deep shadows. Montjoy waited, patient and smiling, turning the gift over and over in his hands.

“Here is Phillippe’s,” Mattheiu said eventually, bringing out another from behind his back. If this little wooden horse was more sturdy, more warlike and menacing than its elegant companion, the differences were in the eye of the beholder. Montjoy accepted it into his left hand. No one would deny that, left and right, the sculptures were a pair, and once, their sculptor had lavished his utmost upon them, had surely bled over them. “When will he come home?” his brother asked, gazing through the window. Heartache cuts the herald then, unbearably, and his fingers tighten on the figurines. The fact that Mattheiu had given him the second horse poured excruciating light onto his brother’s thoughts, but with his high-pitched seven year old voice, he had still asked, so innocently, or so knowingly.

“Will he come home soon?” _How to break his heart? Slowly, like water carving rock? Or shattering it all at once? A sharp pain, and then it’s done?_ The herald’s gut roiled and his throat went dry, but he fixed his eyes out the window, and pushed it all away. “I don’t know,” he said, and it hurt like no wound he had ever known. “You know he cannot travel as freely as I.” It is not quite a lie, and yet it is not the whole truth.

_I know he will not be back before you are gone to study. I know why he stays away. And it is none of your doing. It should be none of your burden, none of your dark days, but it is. And here I am, my tabard is poor substitute for his coat of arms, I know. My empty hands are no sword and shield, I know, and my clumsy platitudes are no healing salve to you. I know._

With titanic effort, he unclenched his hands and forced his voice light and even. “Did you make one for Father as well?” he asked, holding out the pair of horses. Looking up, his brother slid off his seat, mysterious as any faceless icon, and beckoned for Montjoy to follow him. They padded down the hallway and into the master bedroom, like silent clerics entering a sunlit choir, full of reverence. The air was stale with disuse but the room was swept clean and unfailingly neat. Leaning by the door, reluctant to set another foot past the boundary, Mattheiu pointed to their father’s dresser. There, in front of a small, hand-drawn portrait of a beautiful, smiling woman, by the lone candle in its waxy holder, a long procession, single-file. Hushed with surprise, Montjoy drew closer to inspect the figures.

“This one looks like a pig,” he joked, and his brother shook a threatening fist at him. But in their turn, each one grew and shed their wooden skin and took on increasing definition. There were nine arranged in a precise row, and the leader had lines almost as smooth as the pair he held in his hands. He held up his own in comparison, and turning, pointed out, “Seems like you’ve much improved since this last one.” He was not prepared for his brother to turn around and sprint away, footsteps echoing down the corridor, but alone with his renewed sorrow, his self-recriminating hindsight, he found he could not meet the charcoal gaze of the woman in the picture frame.

*

Charged like Jupiter’s bolt, and as deafeningly quiet, the words leap past them, promising thunder in its wake. “My brothers,” Henry said.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	22. Unheard Overhead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spelling out his fate.

 

A solitary lantern hung on a hook by the stable doors, pouring its molten amber light down the silhouette of the King. Henry had retrieved his golden crown from the straw. It shone above a face cast in shadow, a murky halo pricked in crimson and emerald. “Get out of my sight,” said England’s King. His tone was even, but his rage was a meteor streaking across the night sky, all distant soundless fury, all searing consuming flame, and for any other men it would have crushed them with impunity. But these were his own brothers, to his bitter heartache. So it only blazed overhead, a blood-red heavenly omen, a taste of bared steel, a warning and a promise. He stood at the mouth of the narrow gap, and beheld three men covered in one man’s blood. One standing, witnessing him now with dismay, one crouching, meeting his stare so calmly, and one on his knees, seeing but uncomprehending.  

“Henry,” said Humphrey, gesturing as he prepared an explanation. He tried to brush the blood from his hands self-consciously, but the silver ground was flecked with it.

“How dare you,” Henry said, darker than the moonless night, “ _My_ _brother_.”

_Knowing what you know, how dare you._

“Henry,” said John, sharper and more insistent. He opened his hands, and the man he held fell limply back into the surging dust. The sight of it encased the King in iron, and fire, searing away all indulgence in an instant, charring the surface of his skin bone white and ash grey. His brothers, who read his expression by the wan and flickering lantern light, came forward anxious and opened their mouths to speak, but Henry silenced them with a single glance.

 _No more carefree prince, no more caring brother, here was a sole and solitary king, and no man could stand beside him._ Here was Henry Bolingbroke, tearing England’s flesh to cut out the rot from within. Here was John of Gaunt, a hundred and twenty defiant days scorching the earth from Champagne to Burgundy to Dordogne. Here was Edward, Black Prince, one bloody gauntlet taking the King of France, one sharp sword staking the Oriflamme. Three hundred years of the House of Plantagenet, and one blood-soaked generation of the House of Lancaster. Henry took one step into the darkness of the alley, and his brothers fell back one step unconsciously. The light fell away from his rigid back, his clenched fists and glittering glare, making of him a vengeful shade, the color of blood, and the primal taste of it.

“You think he is a spy?” He asked John, from beneath the deepest ocean trench, and his brother pressed his lips together unhappy. _No man tells me the truth more faithfully, whatever it may cost him._

“You think he is an assassin?” He asked Humphrey, from beyond the furthest visible star, and his brother looked away from his gaze. _No man walks empty-handed more openly, however it may hurt him._

“You prowling wolves, you jackals blinded by your so-called loyalty,” he said, every word more painful, every breath coming razor-edged, “How much must he bleed before he satisfies you? Because I know. _I know._ He will bleed straight on ‘til death without so much as a single backwards glance.”

_Simply because you are my brothers, he will go gladly. Simply for me._

“Get out of my sight. I see only brutes beating a defenseless man. Only savages without reason or principle. Oh Dear _God_ , are these my noble _Lords_? Are these my _brothers_?” He turned his gaze to the sky, into which his simple sorrow went freely, and upon his sincerity they were crucified. “I renounce them. Hear me, Holy Father, I renounce them.”

“For this Frenchman, you would renounce your own brothers?” Humphrey asked, incredulous and hurting.

“To this Frenchman, you have given up your honor,” Henry said with soft crushing contempt. His disappointment brought chagrin openly to his brother’s face. “You are disgraced by your own hand. Dare you place the blame on him? Dare you call me brother? _For shame,_ look to yourselves, you brigands, and get out of my sight.” He pushed past to them to the herald’s side, and without another word they left.

“ _L’ange_ ,” Montjoy gasped as the shadow loomed over him, blood running freely from his lips, and he laughed deliriously, except it was no laugh, it was a violent hacking cough, dappling the ground gory. _An angel descends, too late. Too late. Lions have been here._ He struggled to raise his hand, to wipe the blood from his eyes so he could see clearly, but his arm barely trembled in answer to his need. In the fading light, he could not be sure if he had truly tried, or if it had been nothing more than a passing thought taking nebulous form as it passed through the crimson veil.

“Hush,” said Henry, kneeling beside him.  
“Lions,” he said, in sweet dying agony, and Henry gathered him up gently.  
“No,” said Henry, “No more lions.”  
“Message,” he said, breathing bubbling liquid, one hand closing around the king’s, urgent, hollow. For his desperation, he gave up every last shred of his energy into the furnace of consciousness. “ _Attendez_ ,” he begged. _Wait. Don’t go. Please. I have a message for you._

“Quiet, Herald,” whispered Henry, holding his hand for a lingering moment, “I am here.” He had to let go to lift the limp man onto his back, and winced at the breathless strangled moan the movement engendered. Blindly, eyes closing, Montjoy sought for his hand again. “Henry,” he pleaded, not finding it, not knowing the ground moved beneath him, or the sky overhead, and not wanting to be alone. “Hush,” said Henry, humming for him a familiar tune, wordless and repeated. Nothing more than a simple song for the road, nothing less than emotion pure and wholly personal _._ _Someone loves you, delicate Joanna. Loves you so much more than any other._ Through flesh and bone the herald heard it, through the body conducting, it stole past the roaring in his ears. He heard it echo down the dark road, calling him home.

*

“Your Majesty, why?” Thomas asked with a sigh, his eyes searching the prone body, not knowing where to begin. He settled for slicing open the shirt from collar to hem with a small sharp knife, exposing discolored skin and battered flesh. “Why, Thomas? Not who or what?” Henry hovered anxiously behind him. Their passage to this empty palace room had been a grim and blood-stained trail, leaving his passenger pale and unconscious at the end of it. “What is obvious, who is simple. Why is instructive. Why have you brought me this idiot in your arms again?”

“He was beaten by my own two brothers. Though I was but ten feet away, he did not cry out for me to save him,” Henry murmured. _I would have saved him. But No, he looked at his end and he found it acceptable instead. He can only bring himself to whisper my name, and with the act of it he is already in crisis._

“Henry,” Thomas said evenly, “He is a fool.” Bandages came off the herald in flurry of tattered edges and stained streamers, discarded to the floor with the remnants of his shirt to pool and tangle together and whisper a multitude of wrongs and hurts and weaknesses. With another heavy sigh, the royal physician went to his dresser to light more candles. They would not be finished soon, and he needed the additional light. “Like a lost sheep he is busily climbing a precipice with no way down. He is so simple-minded. Single-minded.” _When he jumps, as he will have to, your heart will break. Don’t you know?_

The first pass of his cloth over weeping skin turned his bowl of clear water murky crimson, like some warlock’s fell instrument of demonic summoning. The second occluded the bottom with a scattering of grey sand. He had shed his feast attire for comfortable shoes and a loose work robe, but the king was still in crimson and gold, his crown sitting low on his brow. Thomas eyed the bloodstains that had spread down Henry’s shoulders and back unheeded, in crawling streams and in fine spatters and fingerprints, thoroughly ruining the expensive material.

“He is fearless.” Henry was fiercely indignant, making a fist and striking the wall with a muted wooden thump. “It is not a failing, though you seem to think it is. He is sincere, and clever, and does not deserve your contempt.”

“This here,” Thomas pointed briefly with the needle he was threading, “is not a clever man.” He viewed his sovereign’s black frown dispassionately. “A clever man does not simply crash headlong into danger. A clever man does not bear wounds from a dozen different hands. However much he knows, however clever he may be, he plays the fool most convincingly.”

Henry paced around the room as the physician purged and sutured the shoulder wound, brooding in silence. “All that he endures is from my hand and of my making,” he said at last, arriving at an answer that sits starkly at the center of his mind, painting everything around it in clean white light. “He bears it like it is his due. He receives it as absolution.” _He does it all for the master he holds above any other. For the mad king whose very mention brings a light to his eyes. Uncle, did you win your herald by chance? By pure divine madness did you make him yours?_

“He should know better,” Thomas said grimly. “Hold this please,” he directed Henry to the herald’s left hand. The king held it far more gently than the thrust of the needle that penetrated the palm and strung its gaping mouth closed. “Steady, your Majesty.” The king’s fingers closed tighter, smearing a sticky scarlet patina over the surface of the only ring the herald wore. _One ring. One small thing._ _A benediction worse than a curse._ “He is no stranger to court and castle. The way he seeks out punishment, all this effort on his behalf is an extravagant waste.”

“Whom do you reproach, Thomas, him or me?” Henry asked, contemplating their hands, the livid and ugly cut that crossed one palm, the weathered soldier’s calluses on the other. “I will protect him.” _When he jumps, I will be there to catch him._ His determination, and his glare, makes Thomas think twice about arguing. The royal physician made a wordless gesture instead, and together they turned the herald over. “Make him your prisoner and lock him in a tower,” Thomas said, as he ran the needle’s tip down each raised and angry weal, pricking a hole in the swollen skin everywhere it oozed clear fluid. For just an instant, with a toothy mischievous smile, the suggestion was entertained by the king as a possibility. “He will lecture me on honor,” Henry said, shaking his head. _As he does._ Absentmindedly, he rubbed his fingers clean on his embroidered hem, disdaining the rag Thomas extended towards him. “And he will be right.” _As he usually is._

“For that, you value him so highly.”  
“It is one reason.”

“He can be useful to you,” Thomas said, cleaning his needle and putting it away. _A herald of the King of France. But,_ the word unuttered is implied from his sober expression. _But will you use him?_  He picked up Montjoy’s right hand, and searched beneath the skin with probing fingertips, finding grinding edges beneath the telltale patches of purple and puce. _You’ve gained yourself an enemy herald with an unparalleled reputation for devotion and duty. Will you use him to the fullest, come what may?_  

“But?” Henry prompted.

“But the expert craftsman sacrifices his tools to his trade, my liege,” he said, eyeing the shallow movements of prone man’s chest, its shuddering rise and quick fall. The brutal sound as he snapped a wooden splint down to size seemed to echo through the room, hollow and haunting. “He knows the blade must blunt and the fuel must burn. He knows they can be replaced.” _He knows how to take care of them, and when they must be thrown away. He must not be sentimental or weak when it comes to his life’s work._

“I appreciate your advice,” Henry said darkly, coming to stand by his side, to see what he saw. A thin Frenchman, wan and bloodless, lifeless, colored in a gothic palette of oils, in greens and browns and deep crimsons laying so heavy on paling skin and long, lax limbs. When he has no means to speak, he seems so weak and vulnerable. When he wears no device he seems so lacking in value. “But you would not say the same of an Englishman.” Swiftly, the doctor bound up all the fingers of the herald’s right hand against the flat stick and pulled the knot tight with ruthless force. “True enough,” he said, brushing his thumb along the lacerated wrists, and touching the bloodied tip to his tongue tentatively, “because it is not the same. He is no Englishman.”

“No.” Henry’s simple authority was not to be questioned or denied. “There is no French or English. There is only what is mine, and what is not. Those things that are mine, I do not sacrifice. As the craftsman does not sacrifice his keen eyes, or his skillful hands.” Henry placed a hand on Thomas’ shoulder with solemn patience, beholding his skepticism like a faithful man before an unbeliever, knowing of something greater. “Thomas, I am a soul of infinite greed. I keep what is mine, and take what is mine, without compromise. A good man’s worth does not blunt. His spirit shall come through the fire, refined as gold and silver is refined. He is mine forever, and does not have to be replaced.”

“Your trust—” Thomas sighed, as a knock came urgent at the closed door, surprising both men. _Your trust is worth more than all of him. Your seeking heart is not known for its good judgment._ Waving for the physician to continue ministration, Henry went to answer it, and the hopeful face beyond the threshold prompted him to step out into the hallway, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“Humphrey,” Henry folded his arms across his chest and regarded his brother unkindly. “Have you come to finish what you started?”  
“I have come to apologize.” His youngest brother sought for his understanding with honesty and deference. He had changed his clothes and shoes, and newly spotless, eyed his bloodstained king and sibling uneasily. “Henry, I’m sorry.”  
“Because I am angry, you apologize,” he observed severely. “But have you true remorse? I see none.”  
“Should I regret acting for your protection?” Humphrey cried. “Perhaps we went too far, but our intentions were pure.”

 _Too far. Sharp knives and slit throats too far. A hundred slaughtered Lords too far. Who am I to say that intentions pale before the consequences?_ Henry’s demeanor softened as his brother offered his hand, and his sincerity.

“Forgive me, brother. With Scrope—”  
“He taught me a most valuable lesson,” Henry cut in harshly, “I do not forget it. Nor do I require your reminder.”

He stared at his brother’s empty hand, reaching out for him. _In quill and sword, it is proficient. It is raised in my name, and bloodied in it._ On his right, Humphrey wore his insignia ring, and on his left, a ring inscribed with St George’s cross. Henry can remember their father placing it on his finger, the day of their induction into the Order, just as he can remember receiving his own. He can imagine how it breaks the skin when his brother swings his fist.

“You seek my forgiveness?” He grimaced. “You shall have it only after you have his.” With a nod over his shoulder, Henry made his intention clear, and Humphrey’s face twisted in bitter distaste. “You will have me apologize to a common herald?” The Duke withdrew his hand to wave the thought away disgusted. “A Frenchman who delivers his masters’ mockery with so much scorn and disdain? The very sight of him enrages me. It is clear he thinks nothing of us English.”

_On the contrary, my brother, he thinks so highly of me, it discomfits us both._

“You hate a man simply because he does not value the same things you do. Can you not entertain his perspective? It does not mean he values wrongly, or that he has no value.”  
“My enemy’s perspective is no good to me,” Humphrey seethed, “If I do this, and I will, I do it for you.” He gestured for the king to let him enter the room, but Henry shook his head firmly.  
“Not now, Humphrey. He is not awake, and Thomas is working.” His brother’s eyes grew fierce in surprise.  
“His treatment comes as richly imperial as his abuse,” he said indignantly, leaning in close to warn his sovereign with all of his heartfelt urgency, “Listen, Henry, Scrope was a tragedy no one foresaw, but this—This is wide-eyed folly. Please—”

“This is my word against yours. My _judgment_ , against yours.” Henry acknowledged his concern by unfolding his crossed arms, and taking his brother’s head gently in his hands, kissed him upon the brow. _Relax, little brother. You are heard. You are cherished._ “I know, brother. I know,” he said softly, his outrage and his cool sovereign prerogative parting before the deep affection, allowing it to rise as it would, free of reservation, wild and untrammeled. “If you would trust me, give Montjoy your apology, and reserve your condemnation of him just yet.”

“I only hope you are right, my liege,” Humphrey murmured, putting his lips to his hand, and his hand to his forehead with due deference, “Tomorrow I will hawk myself to this Frenchman as you wish.” He bowed and stamped off down the hallway clearly unsatisfied.

_Even if you do not understand, at least you came. Not so much for John. Dear, loyal John._

The physician was awash in a snarling fit of unraveled cotton strips and slowly oozing sticky salve, and did not raise his head as Henry reentered. He juggled the unwieldy lengths and fraying ends with dexterous precision, passing them over and through and coating it all with a strong-smelling paste, as if he were not healing a man, but embalming him entire. Henry winced as the resemblance struck him.  

“Go to bed, your Majesty,” Thomas said wearily, “You can do no more for him.”  
“But—”  
“You have a triumph tomorrow.”  
“What if my brother comes?”  
“Then I will send him to you,” said the physician calmly.  
“What—” _What if he wakes in the dark alone? What if he does not find his way home?_ Henry shook his head to unseat the nagging worry, the concern festering unchecked he knew to be irrational.  
“I will be here.” Thomas’ reproachful gaze, flickering around from his intricate task for a split second, froze the king’s protest on his lips. _Triumph is for a king. Not bedside vigil. No matter how much it will ease your heartache.  
_ “Very well.”

_He will wake to a surly physician and his unsmiling lecture. But he will wake._

*

Henry found William, King of Arms waiting outside his chambers. He was leaning against the wall by the stationed guard, and heads together, they spoke quietly and casually, evidently as friends. At the king’s approach, both men straightened up and made their respectful bows. “William,” said Henry, “Have you tomorrow’s plan?” When Guyenne nodded, the king waved him into attendance. “Come.”

The palace room was warm and well-lit. A roaring fire feasted on fresh, dry logs in the large fireplace, and a dozen dancing candles held the shadowy corners firmly at bay. Little shy before his own herald, who had followed him throughout the muddy, blood-soaked campaign, the king beckoned for the report even as he stripped off his stained shirt and discarded it offhand. William hung back by the center of the entrance room and calmly detailed the preparations undertaken in London, raising his voice as Henry stalked off into the bedroom in search of a suitable garment. His even tone betrayed nothing out of the ordinary, but his gaze falling on his sovereign’s bare back was at once curious and bemused.

“Very good,” Henry pronounced, pulling a robe over his head as he returned. “Tomorrow, we entertain, Sunday we attend mass, and on Monday, we will hold court at Westminster. Who comes first and who came furthest?”

“Nicolaus, Drachen Herald,” said William, merrily mispronouncing the German title, “accompanied by the returning Sir Hungerford. Alfonso, Cataluña Herald. His Portuguese archenemy Jamais Herald. I have assumed you wish to meet with John first, as usual. Medici’s envoy Giovanni di Soderini, leading a group of three others, from Milan and Rome and Venice.” His crooked smile suggested that the leader by no means held any true authority over his compatriots, nor represented anything more than a temporary front satisfying appearances. All four would inevitably seek private audience, and offer conflicting treaties. “And of course, Montjoy King of Arms, bearing Charles’ message.” The list of names was concluded in an air of inquiry, but Henry was grimly and uncommonly silent.

“My liege?” ventured Guyenne. “Is there something unsatisfactory?” A host of other knights and emissaries yet waited on the king’s pleasure, but they did not merit the very first day of Henry’s time, however much they hung upon William’s arm and pleaded with him.

“No, it is fine,” said Henry, coming to attention, clasping his hands behind his back thoughtfully. He did not dismiss his herald, to William’s surprise. Guyenne watched his king deliberate, and knew it was neither the late hour nor the tiresome politicking that weighed upon his mind. “What to do with this foolish French herald, William?” Henry asked finally, “Can you give him an English apprentice?”

For a long moment, and to his chagrin, Guyenne King of Arms was utterly bereft of understanding, and an answer. As his mind reeled and recovered from the unexpected, thinking fast, he answered the question simply, “The herald of the King of France? Not without his master’s expressed permission.”  
“It could be gotten,” said Henry, casting his thoughts to far off Rouen and it muted, divided court. _It could be demanded with the coin of Agincourt._  
“To what end, your Majesty? If I know Montjoy at all, he will not relinquish his independence so easily.”  
“And do you know him well?”  
“I should think we are friends. It is not too hard to know him well. He is an exceedingly simple man,” William said with a broad and generous smile, wondering idly if the French herald would take his statement as compliment or insult. From the king’s thin, answering grin, it was clear he had deemed it praise.  
“So he is.”

Henry subsided, resubmerging in his silence, still as a watcher in wintry woods, invisible to its prey. With no explanation forthcoming, William offered his best suggestion based on a barely formed suspicion, and a livid memory of breaking a pitcher over de Ashfield’s head. “Lancaster Herald is the one Englishman who will not be intimidated or tricked or ignored by Montjoy King of Arms,” he said, “They were tutor and apprentice once, and the student does not soon forget.” _Nor does the teacher let him_ , William thought with a wry internal grin. _Good for him. He keeps for himself something of unique value, though he will in no way exploit it._ “They were close?” Henry raised his head to judge his herald’s answer, searching for his honesty. “They were bedfellows once,” he replied, and the king looked away again.

 _Montjoy, what have you wrought?_ William repressed a sigh of discontent as he was dismissed with a nod. “Keep an eye on him, William, and tell John to attend me tomorrow.” He backed away to the unsettling sight of Henry’s troubled frown, and his sovereign’s clouded gaze cast so fiercely into the hearthfire, hoping against all odds to commit its burden to the flame. _From procession’s flank to lead, your name is on every lip. And I do not know nearly enough to save you from any of it._

*

“What excitement over one man. One poor herald. His immense ill fortune impresses. Or is it his fate?”

The Duke of Clarence looked down at the insensible man, and grimaced. Shrouded in stained white wrappings and deathly pale everywhere he was not discolored, he did not seem alive enough to merit concern. And yet, still in his festive finery, the Duke had come prudently to render his judgment. “Henry is blinded, our Uncle is convinced, John is too rash and Humphrey is content to follow obediently. Give me your assessment, Doctor. What do you think of all this?”

“It is one thing to buy a useful man with coin,” Thomas said, “It is another thing entirely to pay a king’s honest affection.”

“You have my agreement,” Clarence nodded curtly. He reached down to pick up the herald’s hand, right and then left, inspecting them with distant interest. “You have taken good care of him.” Thomas shrugged to receive the compliment. He was languidly painting the herald’s head and face with a hardening poultice, unwinding in the slow rhythm as he waited for each thin layer to dry before dabbing on the next.

“I like to be thorough,” he said at length.  
“Even for a dead man?”  
“He is not yet dead,” Thomas said, raising an eyebrow, and the Duke mirrored his action exactly. The physician swirled his brush in the half-filled bowl, and thought hard. “Not by my hand,” he said, and this time the Duke raised the side of his mouth in a lean half-smile, humorless and meaningful.  

“You are perhaps the physician he trusts most in England?” Thomas snorted at the comment.  
“What does that earn me but wakeful nights and blood-stained sheets?”

The Duke ignored his cynical retort. He was crouching down, pursuing a golden glint of treasure. From the scraps of shredded cloth littering the floor he picked up a whole embroidered lily, holding fast to its delicate shape despite its fraying backing. It had come off the herald's shirt, and was smaller than those sewn to his tabard, which were intended to be read at great distance, but as an icon of the King, it was no less meticulously crafted.

“Is he worth more dead, or alive, or dying?” Clarence murmured, dusting off the golden flower introspectively, bending its flat petals between slender fingers.

“Depends,” shrugged the physician, “What do you intend to buy with him?”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	23. Straight on 'til Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keep to the road. Keep on living. Straight on 'til Morning.

A hand on his forehead startled Montjoy awake, and in a split second surging with fear he seized it. In the very next, breathless blinding agony seared him from palm to forehead, coming full circle, straight down his trembling arm, up his tightly suffocating chest and across his aching shoulder into the bright sparking pain behind his eyes. As if he had touched a lightning bolt, his fingers leapt away from the contact, but the path it had carved electric through his body did not relent any of its burning intensity. Over the hollow sound of his own gasping he heard the doctor say, “I wouldn’t make any sudden moves if I were you.”

He opened his eyes to the sight of the man’s silver crucifix hanging above his face, sparkling in the roseate glare of sunrise, as welcome as a sight of the North Star to the lost sailor. “Thomas,” he whispered, cringing at the sound of his own cracked voice. He was acutely conscious of the physician’s close attention. The way the Englishman held his breath so imperceptibly, waiting on some anticipated shattering. As he laboriously rolled onto his side and propped himself up into a sitting position, he marked the anxious hovering of hands on either side of his body, restrained, but ready. They did not have to intervene. He made it upright, with a wave of heady, blissful vertigo, and surrendering to a flash of utter blackness and a taste of bare iron. His reward was a cup of water held out for him to drink from, like a soldier newly bereft of his limbs, like a panting dog in the desert. He stared into its clear rippling depths with intense suspicion.

“Just water, I promise,” Thomas said, replacing his hand on the herald’s forehead. The doctor’s touch was that of a man coming in from the cold, his skin like weathered leather, a worn glove pricked by dawn frost, but Montjoy knew it was his own fever that made the difference entire.

“What time is it?” The herald gasped with surprise as the water scorched the inside of his torn mouth. His gaze flickered out the window to the pale, clear sky, and asked another question entirely.

“You have at least an hour, maybe two, before the king departs,” Thomas said, setting the cup aside. He put one finger to Montjoy’s cheekbone and pressed down intently, nodding to himself at the startled yelp of pain. “Assuming there’s no way I can stop you from going?”

“Were you planning to tie me up?” the herald asked pointedly, but the doctor tapped him gently on one bandaged wrist, and said with some grim amusement, “Probably shouldn’t.”

Taking a deep breath, Montjoy examined himself. Both hands had been tightly bandaged from joint to wrist, and when he tried to flex his fingers he could only close his left hand into a thin crescent, his right had been splinted straight and immovable. Most of his chest and right shoulder had been similarly swathed. His right arm had been secured to his chest in a wrapping that contrived to hide the knots behind his back, making him smile with wan understanding. When he raised his free hand to explore his head, he found his forehead bandaged and his face unbearably sensitive. Thomas continued to prod him briskly, with two stiff fingers, and every spot he converged on detonated unerringly beneath his sure touch, until the herald couldn’t be sure in the surge of breathless nausea, of excruciating pinprick, if he was undergoing inspection or torture. 

“You’re alive,” Thomas said, sitting back in his chair with a deep sigh. Relief washed over the herald as the physician withdrew his implacable hand.

“Thank you,” Montjoy said quietly, looking up at the man whose grim eyes were smudged with fatigue, and looking down at the neat folds of white fabric obscuring both his palms. _Is this my fate now?_ Their lines were straight and orderly, with the barest hint of color at the center. _I hope it reads more favorably_. “For everything.”

“Thank Henry.” _For everything._

When Montjoy looked away, Thomas laughed once, sharply and without humor, so the herald turned back to him with a bleak smile.

“You must think me a glutton for punishment.”  
“I think years of speaking to kings and lords has made you foolhardy.”  
“Prescribe me a cure.”  
“Fear of pain,” said the doctor, pointedly, as if speaking to a child. “Fear of death. These seem to work well enough for other men. Better to be a coward, you said yourself.”

“I couldn’t,” he said, clenching the hand he could, forcing the fingers to close. The taut cloth resisted him implacably, and across his palm a familiar pain ignited. “I wasn’t,” he whispered, hanging his head. “Why does it damn me so?”

“Stop that,” Thomas ordered, snapping the herald to attention. “You want to lose your hand? You think your life is cheap? I am no butcher’s alley surgeon, and you are a walking king’s ransom in medicine.”

“Then I hope to bankrupt your crown,” he said lightly, but the doctor did not smile, only bore down with his stern and unforgiving expression. “I’m sorry, Thomas. You look tired.” He reached out to grasp the man’s hand, and Thomas allowed him to take it.

“It was never my intent to trouble you. You want me to cherish my life? I do.”  
“I see only evidence to the contrary.”  
“You claim I asked for this?”  
“Did you?”

_Or did it come upon you, like the wrath of God? Base or divine? You opened your mouth and damned yourself._

He felt the silence come keenly, a blade raised in accusation, a knife edge upon which to open his veins, or submit, or lie. “I must go,” he said instead, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and gritting his teeth against the scream that tore up his throat.

“Very good,” said the doctor darkly. “Practice that cowardice.” Montjoy could not decide if it was sarcasm or censure that rode his words, but they hurt just like a barbed bolt, like a fist raised in anger, and left him feeling empty.

“Thomas,” he said uncertainly, having nothing but an aching silence lined up behind the impulse that made him seek some unfamiliar absolution from the Englishman. _Tell me doctor, what is it that hurts so? Hand or heart or head?_

“Your right hand is broken in two places,” said the physician, returning to his professional manner, his toneless clarity belying the previous second’s emotion, denying it. “The cut on your left hasn’t closed. Your wrists are in tatters. You have a hole in your shoulder that swells and one in your back that weeps. You have at least one broken rib, and more fractured, like your head and cheek. But such as it is, you are alive. I give you that much as least.”   

Abruptly he stood up, and extended a hand. “Take care of yourself,” he said, pulling Montjoy to his feet, supporting him steadily as he sagged in newfound agony. “Don’t even think of touching those.” He slapped the herald’s hand down as it investigated the sling immobilizing his right arm. “Come see me tomorrow.” Montjoy grinned with self-deprecating honesty. “You know I won’t,” he said sadly. He took one bold step forward, and was pleased with himself when he landed it, though it was neither graceful nor easy. He could handle the rolling floor and the pain’s drumming beat. They were, at least, things of the physical world, of flesh and blood, easily understood. “I’m sorry.” Thomas folded his arms and returned his grin with a watchful frown. As Montjoy manhandled the door open with unresponsive fingers and lurched into the hallway, he called out, “Come back.” A breathless sound came back, wordlessly inquisitive, and Thomas did not grudge himself a pang of satisfying wickedness as he said, “You should put on a shirt.”

*

He leaned against her bulk, and breathed, engulfed in a moment of sinful serenity. All around the bustling chaos crackled, energized, but it could not intrude into his grey world. It could not concern him with the order of the line, or the trumpet tune, or even the sun rising in the cloudless sky. It was none of his responsibility, and over the back of his saddle he watched Englishmen scurry about frantic. He was no willing participant, he was floating carefree in a doldrum sea, becalmed; the seabirds wheeled and called, and the waves lapped up anxiously, but they could not change one iota of his reality.

“Too tall,” he whispered to her ear, and it swiveled backwards to listen. With his eyes closed, he only felt her shift at the sound of his voice, but he knew she had looked around. “When did you get this tall?” he asked sadly. She had saddle and reins and fluttering caparison, looking fully the part of the procession, but he was a shaking, shallow-breathing scarecrow without a heart, feeling keenly like his limbs were made of hollow straw.

“My God,” William uttered, mouthing a blasphemy under his breath. He came upon the idling French herald suddenly, the sound of his footsteps had been masked in the general noise. As Montjoy opened his eyes, Guyenne waved one warning finger under his nose. “Don’t you dare lie to me, Montjoy King of Arms,” he said, menacing him with his thunderous frown. He received a wan laugh, crumpling like parchment without backing in the brilliant light. Montjoy ducked to one side as the finger flicked upwards to brush away his hood, but he was too slow, too clumsy, and the covering fell, revealing his face.  

“Don’t you have better things to be doing?” He asked, pulling his hat from his saddlebag and putting it on firmly. It covered the bandages on his head at least.  
“Don’t prevaricate either you ass. You think this is funny? Who did this?”  
“Englishmen,” said the herald, spreading his free arm helplessly. As soon as he had released his grip on her saddle he swayed uncertainly where he stood, and William put a steadying hand on his shoulder. The heavy weight only made him more light-headed. “Drunk and violent and looking for sport. Let it be.”  
“Who?” William’s eyes flickered about the courtyard, returning to the herald flush with suspicion.  
“Does it matter?”  
“Englishmen assaulting you without tabard or badge of office? They knew you.”  
“They took issue with my face.”  
“Henry had blood on his shirt last night,” William said, making a connection that narrowed his gaze to a single predatory point. “Was it yours?”  
“You ask me about your master’s shirt? What do I know?”  
“God in Heaven, the way you frustrate me. I am only trying to help you. Must we be enemies like this?”  
“As a friend, I’m telling you to let it be,” Montjoy said, and patted the Englishman on the arm. William did not look reassured in the slightest. Thoughts clouded swiftly over his face as he considered the possibilities.  
“Was it Henry?” he asked in a hushed whisper, holding his breath as he did.  
“What? No—” Montjoy gave him a calm smile that did nothing to settle his spirits. “No, of course not.”  
“But Henry knew. He must have been there—”  

“Guyenne King of Arms,” Montjoy interrupted, raising his voice and coughing with the effort. “My friend.” The Englishman fell silent. His stare was clearly conflicted, one half roiling with irritation, the other rankly pitying. “Help me please,” the herald said softly, left hand resting on the seat of his saddle. He watched the vicious war for supremacy play out swiftly in his friend’s eyes. The pity won a crushing victory. _You understand me, William de Guyenne. How miserable is that herald who cannot even mount his horse? How wretched and useless he is._ William sank to one knee and smoothly boosted him up onto his mount. If he had noticed the fleeting grimace, or the tremor of agony passing through the leg, it was nothing more than another wrinkle in his black scowl. “We are not done with this,” he called out to Montjoy’s retreating back, with the sinking realization that he had been cheated, as the Frenchman directed his horse calmly out onto the open road.

*

They walked the road like pilgrims, heads down in wordless penitence, slowly beneath the immense weight of the clear open sky. She, following the way faithfully with her crisp, even gait, needing no direction. He, breathing deep, eyes closed, reins hanging loosely from trembling fingertips, immersed in self-reflection. _Keep on breathing, just yet. Keep to the road. Keep on living._

_Every breath one more taken, one more promise shoring up a screaming soul. Every step one more taken, one more on the long road home._ But the wintry air was damp with English fog rolling off the low hills, and smelled like dark earth and deep green forest, nothing like the suntouched lavender he remembered. Her long strides ate up the dusty path. They passed villagers with children on their shoulders, with loaded wagons of sacks and barrels, with nothing but the rags on their feet and back. Those perceptive to his labored breathing let him pass in watchful silence; others hailed him cheerfully as they spied his bright ornamentation, and asked in a scattering of languages for news of the king. Always, he simply gestured down the way he had come with one bandaged hand.

_Listen, I promise—what?_

Hooded monks travelled in trios, their belts made of rope and their robes coarse wool, but some had crucifixes made of wood, and some made of gold. Returning soldiers travelled in packs, those that had no real home to return to, and they preened in the reflected adulation, telling tall tales to any who would listen. The common folk sang hymns of praise as they walked, and working songs with the same meaning if not the same verse; the soldiers sang their vulgar campfire ditties but not their marching beats, which reminded them of too much, and the men of God proceeded silently through the air filled with tuneless symphony, making a great cathedral of the sky.

_What of promises made on the road? They shake as he comes and shatter as he speaks._

He was offered bread, as he rode by, and cheese and fruit and raw wine, shared by those with shining eyes, heady with excitement, generous on a day when every man could put an arm around his neighbor’s shoulders and partake in his joy. Always, he declined with a nod and a sad smile, their bright English chatter washing over him as mist, as cloud in his senses. Once, a grinning child atop her father’s head reached over and placed a crooked chain of small white flowers about the ears of his horse, and he did not have the heart to stop her. The slim ivory petals were speckled with brown imperfections, but that only made each blossom seem more precious, more fragile and transient. They still hung about her brow, taunting him with some unreadable message, as he turned off the road just shy of Blackheath, before the great straining mass of waiting citizens could absorb him whole. In the shadow of a quiet copse, far enough off the road and high enough up a hill to deter most other travelers, he had spotted the familiar silhouette of a grey horse he had valued most highly, and its tall rider.

_Listen, empty house so haunted, and poor mad throne. I promise—I have not lost sight of home._

The Englishman turned in his saddle to greet him as he gained the small rise and entered the dappled shade. With a pragmatic expression, Robert took in his florid cheek and bruised lips, the sleeve hanging empty and the shallow stuttered breathing, but as soon as he spoke Montjoy knew he was profoundly angry. “Those men got to you yet,” he said blackly, a statement and a question launched from his searching gaze. Montjoy deferred answer with a wan gesture as his horse drew abreast of the grey. The English archer had chosen a vantage point worthy of another iron-tipped goose-fletched massacre. In the field below, ten thousand Englishmen churned the frozen ground to dust as they waited on their king. They were no further than the French line had been, but their frantic seething glitter burst multi-hued off precious stones, not silver steel, and their flags bore not coats of arms but craftsmen symbols. No need here for falling iron to open skin, they were all garbed in scarlet and white, a field of fresh blood on new snow. The noise of their milling wordless voices joined was a rumble of distant thunder, constant and atonal like the pounding surf.

“Who were they?” Robert asked, when he had realized the herald would not break the silence.  
“What will you do if I tell you?” Montjoy replied, nonchalant, eyes on the writhing sea of bodies below.  
“Punch them in the face?” he said archly, raising one eyebrow. “Vengeance can be a gift exchanged between friends.” The herald turned to him with a faint smile, and shook his head. _English fighting English for the sake of a Frenchman. The beginning of a jest, ending only in sorrow._

“How is your family?” Montjoy asked instead.  
“Fine. Healthy. Same as ever. We ate together. We lit a candle at my father’s grave. My mother cried, and my sisters cried. My brother cried and pretended not to. Far too much crying for my taste.”  
“Then you did not cry?”  
“Who but a rogue would ask a man such a question?” He laughed cheerfully and winked at the herald.  
“Did they not come for the triumph?”  
“Oh no, they did. But they are in London. That mess,” he nodded to swarming field, “is downright dangerous for any man with no horse.” He patted his own grey gelding fondly on the neck.  
“You sit more comfortably on yours now,” Montjoy noted.  
“Was that praise or insult, herald?” he asked, theatrically suspicious. “You were right, Kincaled is a good horse.”  
“So you named him _Kincaled_?” The Englishman bridled defensively at Montjoy’s mocking snort.  
“My sister did,” he muttered.  
“Far be it from me to question your fair sister,” said the herald, softening, scorn fading distant. “Any man returning home so covered in glory can surely stand toe to toe with Gauvain and be spoken of in the same breath.”  
“Hah, her head is full of stories. She says to me, I do not look or act the part of a knight, but at least my horse does.”  
“Perhaps she will say different after the ceremony.” Montjoy mimed a reverent gesture, hand on his lips, moving to his heart. “Surely then your brother and sisters will tip their heads to their grand knightly kin.”

A loud, disbelieving guffaw from the English soldier startled the sparrows in the bare branches, setting them to chittering complaint. He said, “I know you have not had an older brother, or any sisters at all, if you think that.” Montjoy confirmed his assertion with a distracted nod. A fleeting vision of his brother, clad in red and white, long steel at his side, had crossed his mind, but as soon as he had focused on it; it evaporated in a shimmer like salt flats beneath a searing desert sun, like salt from water, leaving behind only a lingering taste of ash.

“Tell me the name of your horse, then,” Robert said, not noticing the herald’s momentary lapse. “It is only fair that I should get to mock you in return.” Montjoy considered him with some surprise. “She has no name,” he said finally. The Englishman’s expression judged his answer completely unsatisfactory. “Nameless. Just like your attackers,” Robert said heavily, one thoughtful hand scratching his chin. “If I didn’t know better I would accuse you of hiding something. Are you this mistrustful with all your friends? Or are we not friends after all?”

“We are, and, I am,” said the herald, his sincerity dissolving into a chuckle at Robert’s horrified frown. With an exaggerated glare the soldier drew his sword a fingerswidth from its sheath, showing him a glint of bare beaten steel, and Montjoy returned him the upturned and empty palm of his wrapped hand. But he was only teasing the Englishman. “Her stablemaster gave her no name because she would not be tamed,” he said. He clicked his tongue once, and she turned wet soulful eyes on him, enquiring. “I gave her no name because I did not believe I would keep her for long.” The flower chain hung on gamely to her brow, refusing to fall even as it wilted and shed its leaves. _And here we are, years later. Still here. Still nameless._ “ _Comment t’appelles-tu?_ ” he asked her, ignoring Robert’s condescending smirk.

“You did not want to keep her?”  
“I would have allowed her to break all my bones,” he avowed with reverent fondness. “No, I had thought a knife in the back inevitable. Or a quick visit to the hangman.”  
“How exciting your life is,” Robert said dryly. “How safe your profession.”  
“It was not this profession, but the legacy of my family. I see now, they never did cry enough.”

_I never saw my father cry. My brother was dry-eyed when he turned his back on home. Perhaps I had it all wrong. We were not undone by tragedy, we are too bereft of emotion._

He began to clench his hand again, unconsciously, but the doctor’s sharp rebuke echoed through his mind, quenching his self-absorption. Chest aching, he made himself exhale, and made himself smile, and found himself quailing beneath the Englishman’s queer frown. It was watching him too closely. It marked when his fingers twitched, and when his brow creased with pain as he inhaled. He shifted in his saddle, aching in the cool breeze, meeting the brilliant stare unabashed.

“What’s in a name?” he asked, lighter and bemused, convincing himself, “It has not been needed. She is my one and only, never to be given away or surrendered as spoils. My horse, I only have to say. _Mon coeur._ ” _Mine._ His smile deepened as it repelled Robert’s sneer, as unperturbed as a stone wall rejecting the ineffective prick of a wooden arrow. “Ha, a horse,” muttered the knight under his breath, pitying him so openly, “Is there anything in this world you love more than your horse?”

_You have not yet ridden a thousand lonely miles. Archer, marching. Knight, charging. Always in a line of your fellows._

“Of course. My dear prodigal brother. My liege.” Montjoy paused, thoughtful, and finished wanly. “Then, my horse.” He listened to himself and laughed aloud without remorse.  
“My God, in that order?” Robert shook his head sadly.  
“Yes,” he said, quiet but cheerful. _A list that sounds fine to me. Sounds proper, and correct._

With great deliberation, the Englishman transferred his reins to his left hand, and holding up his right, crooked his finger, beckoning. “Indulge me,” he murmured, barely loud enough to indicate he had spoken at all. “What?” Confused, the herald flicked the reins and tapped the side of his mount, signaling her. She stepped sideways neatly, brushing flanks with the bigger grey. In the falling silence, he leant towards Robert, and looked up at the tall man, seated upon his taller horse, eyes questioning.

For a single second, a fleeting fearful heartbeat, he recognized the Englishman’s strange expression. He had seen it above a drawn sword, and above the bloodied blade it had tried to read him. It had reached him. It said something to him, and too late, he recognized it. Now, Robert struck with his upheld hand, seizing Montjoy’s tabard and nearly dragging the herald out of his saddle, pulling him effortlessly across the gap and up to face level. He ignored the startled cry. It was muffled the very next instant as Robert put his thirsty lips to the herald’s. Cut and bruised as they were, they felt him deeply, hot and demanding, disdaining consent, taking without mercy, breaking so gently. He ignored the bandaged hand that tugged weakly at his grip, and kissed him without recourse. Rough as it was, it was painful, like pressing into a fierce flame. Reckless as it was, it was scarlet sweet and slick with blood and saliva, weathered on the surface, by the winter, and sinfully soft beneath. It was ended in a heartbeat, the Englishman retreating so swiftly, licking his lips. “Tastes like blood,” Robert said, showing his teeth in a ravaging grin, daring and unrepentant. Wild with confusion, Montjoy stared at him wide-eyed, and raised a hand dazedly to his lip. _Salt and iron_ , tasting of suffering, of his own helpless distress. The telltale smear over his fingertip ignited a searing sense of surrender.

“Are you mad, Englishman?” he asked, breathless, simmering hotly, finding his outrage and moving by it.  
“Are you angry Montjoy?” came the swift reply.

In anguish he reined up his mount and turned her head away from the ridge. The wan winter sunshine cast the leafless copse in stark monochrome, and they relinquished their own colors as they passed through, pallid sojourners in a scrawny arboreal jail. Robert took a parallel path with his own grey gelding, keeping pace, and in between the crooked trunks called out to him in heartfelt question.

“Simply because I show you my hand? Simply because I adore you?”

“What?” He cried out in disbelief, shaking his head. The big grey swerved closer as they broke through the line of trees onto a gentle south-facing slope, heading at a trot for the main London road. Restored to the sunlight, Robert’s teasing eye was green and amber and hazel, many hues shifting indefinite, their intent carefree and transparent. Their mounts matched gaits without having to be asked, drawing their masters together in a singular rhythm.

“Shall I wait for you to realize it? Who is that patient? Not me.” Robert touched his fingers to his lips and made an inviting gesture. “I know I am better off asking for forgiveness rather than permission.”  
“You presume too much,” Montjoy said coldly.  
“Am I wrong?”  
“You are—not right,” he said, jaw clenched, “You don’t know me.”  
“My gut tells me that French count of fifteen reminded you of your brother. Am I wrong?” Robert laughed as he shook his head mutely. “You got your cracked cheek and your broken arm challenging the honor of another Englishman. Challenging him empty-handed, like some kind of fool who believes in the existence of good men, and you found him sadly wanting.”

_You are wrong. My arm is bandaged but not broken.  
_ _You are thinking of the wrong brother. And the right one was never fifteen._

“This very moment, I find your honor wanting.” His acerbic condemnation was received by the Englishman as a blessing, with a wanton smile.  
“I lied,” said Robert as he shrugged, “I am an unreasonable man. Forgive me?”  
“No!”

Laughter crackled loudly over hoofbeats and heaving breaths, immensely joyful, filling up the air unchallenged. “I ask you of love, and you name a sibling, a master and a mount. Two men and one horse. It is so sad, my poor heart cannot take it. You could use one more name. You could use a lover. Tell me I am wrong.”

“I said we could be friends, Sir,” His severe frown met the Englishman’s playful grin, and found no common ground. “Anything more is a covenant bearing consequence.”

“Oh please, spare me.” Robert snorted, “You give your excuses like you give your reasons. Like a poor liar in stubborn denial. What is a covenant to me? A piece of paper I cannot read? Who do you think I am? A royal prince?”

What remained of the herald’s composure cracked, crisp and hollow, like a silently breaking bone, tangible only to him. “What do you want from me?” he asked, hoarse with feeling, realizing unhappily that his hand was bleeding again, and the pain seated in his palm was a dull and distant murmur next to the remembered ache in his lips. Robert’s answering smile was intensely, mercilessly wicked. _I want to make you bleed,_ he read in it. It was bloodthirsty and unsated. _I want to make you scream_ , he saw it promise. _And feel so right. And so want more of each._ It was simple, and honest, and free of ulterior motive, but its hungry meaning left him shivering.

“Hear that?” he said, distracted and deflecting, head turning to the east.

_Ten thousand voices raised in adoration. What sound does twenty thousand hands raised with single intent make? Sounds like wind. Sounds like war._

“Sounds like trumpets.”

_Sounds like the King._

*

He had dreaded the look on John’s face, and it was everything he had anticipated it to be. Fear and concern knitted the English herald’s bushy brown eyebrows and dove trenches at the corners of his eyes, but it was knowing reproach that turned down his mouth, that thinned his lips. It was his mentor’s inevitable censure that made him rein back unconsciously as he wound his way into the quivering mass of Englishmen seething to the distant sound of trumpets. His perceptive eye, and his matter of fact questioning. Then, the truth would find the light it sought most of all, and through the rend in his soul, pull itself into terrible, unconscionable being.

“Don’t look now, but I think you’re being followed,” John said facetiously, belying the dark light illuminating his frown.

“John, this is Robert, who, come tomorrow morning, will be dubbed by Henry for the second time. Who will be made Sir Robert of Upavon, Knight Bachelor of England.” Thus named, Robert nodded cheerfully in greeting. They had come the rest of the way down the main road and carved a loud, begrudging path through the packed ranks of red-cloaked aldermen and guild officers and minor courtiers to stand and wait with heralds from a hundred different Houses. Though out of his element, the English knight was carefree, and smiling. Though surrounded by familiar faces, the French herald felt lingering tension ride his shoulders, and stretched them stiffly to little relief.

“And this is John Fitzsymond,” he continued, “Lancaster Herald, and Exeter Herald. Our most revered elder and better.”  
“Now I find out what you truly think of me,” John grimaced, “How old you think I am?”  
“Older than time itself.” He ducked his head hastily and held up his hand to ward off the oncoming swipe. “Older than all the stars in the night sky.” The sight of fresh bandages and fresher stains sobered the English herald, who settled for making a rude gesture. 

“Sir Robert,” John said loudly over the Frenchman’s continued philosophizing. “Thank you for not taking this idiot herald at his word.” Montjoy shrugged away his glare. “I see you’ve heard,” he interjected, and was promptly ignored. “Though you must have been sore tempted to.”

“In your view, did I do the right thing, Lancaster Herald?” Robert asked with an offhanded smile.  
“As far as I am concerned, you are a man of unimpeachable character. _You_ , on the other hand—”  
“And what would you have done, John,” Montjoy said mournfully, “Watched a young man throw his life away?”  
“If he so chooses, Yes!” the Englishman retorted. “He was no child but a seated Count. Let him decide what he will, and do what he will.”  
“Then we do not agree.”  
“My God, you are an awful student. How lucky you are to find an honorable man at the other end of the blade. What you did will get you killed one day.”  
“One day at a time, mentor mine,” Montjoy said firmly, finally reaching for the flower chain. It fell apart in his fingers as he lifted it from its rakish seat, an impromptu and forlorn floral shower, giving of itself too soon. “I am not yet dead, nor do I lose any sleep over it.”

John rolled his eyes at Robert in exasperation, who could only laugh and nod sympathetically. “In some ways, you take too much after your father,” he said, turning away just as the trumpets began to play. He did not see the crestfallen expression that flickered over Montjoy’s face, exposed for a single uncontrollable instant, and the surging grief it subsumed into, swiftly hidden behind the first, emotionless layer of his composure. But Robert had been watching, and marking it, put one questioning hand on his arm. Starting at the sudden touch, the herald hesitated. A wave of exclamation swept past them, gathering speed and strength, at the first sight of Henry’s brilliant white mare, like a glimpse of an eastern star, leading a train of her fellows into the swelling exultation.

Were they the only two still silent, mouths solemnly shut, and eyes diffidently meeting? _With one hand, you take what you desire. A warrior’s approach. A soldier’s nature._ He raised his own hand, uncertain and aching.

The trumpets awaiting matched the tune of those approaching in perfect harmony, a masterpiece of planning, executed flawlessly. Horses stamped, as concussive thunder, and men roared, as the pounding torrential rain, and at the very tip of the great multitude, Lord Mayor Whittington readied a broad and genuine smile to receive his King.

_My father loved first, his mistress, then, her son, and finally, the previous king, his master._ He placed his hand over the Englishman’s, fingers tight, and bowing his head, accepted his compassion. In bad grace, he knew, he acknowledged it, and with a conflicted smile, tightened his grip on it momentarily, before they both let their hands fall away. _I do not want to be him._

*

One man, meeting one, the honorable Lord Mayor Whittington, clasped his arms and exchanged their beautiful speeches. A prosperous vassal and a most sincere supporter, expressing awe and adulation for the conqueror returning, his investment is repaid in triplicate, his discerning eye has been proven precisely accurate. A modest smile beneath a bright golden crown, a beacon aflame beneath the hot focus of an army’s attention. With pious rhetoric, with whole-hearted profound appreciation, and with clear blue eyes and a sweep of his arm, claims the many thousands for himself. Selfishly, all for himself.

They began to move, in tandem, each horse setting the next in action with its first step, compelling it to move or be moved. The whole great heaving mass begins to walk forward. The herald finds each breath comes harder. His mentor looks over him, worried. His English knight sticks by his side.

One man, meeting a hundred. The first citizens of an ancient city predating all the imperial Houses. The practical minds and dexterous hands behind the thriving industry, so quietly changing the world, so inexorably, as the kings and lords come and go. They offer him praise, and homage, in their hundreds, but more to his fierce, charged smile, more to his liking, they pledge their blood and sweat and coffers to his cause. They will hammer and build and levy in his name, and at his word. He had given his father’s own crown as surety. Now, his word is worth more than a hundred golden crowns. His gentle touch, affirming and elevating, is worth more than anything else. With a hundred nods, and smiles and laughs, he takes them into his service, and shows them favor by it.

A city walks, on horseback, on tanned leather boots, on bare feet. The earth seems to shake, and the wind seems to shriek, but it is all commotion of human making. It is the force of footsteps, and the rhythm of beating hearts. The sound of shouting and crying and singing, the essence of joyous worship scattering in base hoarse voice, in nothing less than ten thousand exhaled breaths. The herald wants to put his hands over his ears, but he has only one free, and it is holding her head steady. It is pressed to his chest, keeping himself steady. He wants to put his hands over his eyes, but he has promised himself, and he keeps it. He does not cry. _A star rises in the east. Keep on. Straight on. No more crying._

One man, meeting a thousand. Ten thousand common and countrymen, the make of his army and the tenders in his fields. He does not disdain to show them they are cherished. If they came, wild and daring, past the heaving guards and under the steelshod hooves, calling his name so yearning, he puts his hand on their heads and offers them a benediction, searing their spirits pure. He tells them they are beloved, and they are treasured, and it is clear that he believes it. They are his countrymen, his neighbors. They can do no trespass against him. Then, they are content to leave in peace, and they sink back into the surging crowd with a new look in their eyes, with stunned revelation, because they have observed the near divine and lived to tell of it. Henry, who has made himself a new army, who has a thousand adoring faces in every direction, bows his head and enters the streets of London on the back of a snow white horse.

*

He wore a crown of beaten gold, and a crown of woven laurel.

_Bring this Caesar a set of four matched horses, and a chariot of fire._

In a gown of deep imperial purple, he rode at the fore with the Lord Mayor. Then, his brothers came. Then, his most loyal Lords. And then his prisoners.

_He has earned it in blood._

At the start of London Bridge, the giants Gog and Magog welcomed him with the keys to the city, bearing the inscription _Civitas Regis Justiciae. Welcome to the City of the King of Righteousness._ The immense stone warders looked upon him with their monstrous grimaces, and he smiled in approval and rode on. In the line of heralds, falling in behind Richard, and William, they were one of the fortunate few to set foot on the bridge before the king had stepped off the other end. Through the shifting barricade of shoulders, he could just make out a flash of purple and a golden crown.

_Bring him a slave to whisper in his ear._

At the end of London Bridge, two columns had been erected in wood and linen and cunningly painted. One like smooth white marble, bearing an antelope of silver with a shield of the royal arms around his neck and a scepter in his right foot. One like opulent green jasper, bearing a fierce golden lion unfurling the royal standard from his right claw. The king passed under them, completing for the span of a man’s arm, a living embodiment of the royal arms. He was greeted by a pavilion of boys in white and gold, an earthbound heavenly hierarchy, proclaiming in their high infinite song. _Deo gratias Anglia reddi pro Victoria._ The herald saw the hymn catch like wildfire through the procession, and even those who did not sing, whispered it in reverence. _Thanks be to God._ Even Robert, serenely smiling, mouthed it as they went past. Henry had expressly forbidden any songs in his name, and so they were sung for God.  

_Someone to whisper to him, Miserere nobis._

The roadway was spanned on both sides by soaring wooden arches, decked in red and white and green, and lined with angelic faces. White robes, and shining white wings, catching in the corner of the eye, as the herald tried not to flinch. The king proceeded by, and under the arches, and was showered with fragrant laurel and painted tinsel, silver comfits and besants of gold, so much that the ground was paved beneath the hooves of his horse with wealth enough to pay for a poor man’s life. Falling so softly, and touching so gently, they made the herald twitch. Out of the air, John snatched a laurel wreath, and Montjoy watched as he held it to his nose, inhaling rapturous. The fresh and bitter scent of victory.

_Have mercy._

A grand stage was prepared, outside the doors of St Paul’s, where fourteen bishops, revessed and mitred and glittering, raised their voices in _Te Deum_ to welcome the King _._ The canopy was painted as the azure sky, the four posts were supported by angels, and the summit was crowned with a gleaming archangel enthroned. Henry dismounted. In a susurration of opulence his retinue dismounted. The herald slid out of his saddle to a hard wincing landing, his body bending upon impact, his hand caught by John, who supported him as he caught his breath. Into the great cathedral, the procession filed, uncommonly boisterous in the House of God, where up the long and empty central aisle, scattered with flowers, they could all watch unobstructed as the king knelt and humbly made his offering.

_Bring him all of my affection._

In their gathered ranks, they offered their praise unto God, as Henry came back down the nave. His gaze, falling on the herald, was knowing. His smile, radiant and searing, called his name so clearly. His concern, and his anxious worry, was a cloud passing by his blissful sunlit sky. To his bleeding lips, Montjoy put his trembling hand, and then, to his bandaged forehead, but he did not meet the king’s eyes as he made the gesture. He turned his own up to the high stone ceiling, and breathed out a wordless prayer. 

_Upon a penitent’s fire, burn it in his name. Commit it to a sacred flame._

John, who had kept one hand on his arm as he limped out of the cathedral, offered his knee and his clasped palms wordlessly. The herald mounted with a quiet murmur of gratitude, nearly lost to the raucous air, ringing with clarion bells, with hymns from a hundred different mouths, and lost words falling out of order through the mayhem. Each one a crystal tone with singular meaning, struck from a chime that ventured just one emotion, which did not, and could not harmonize with the herald. That scraped up against his soul, and made it shriek. Try not to hate them, their joyful grinning faces. Try not to faint, with the effort of it. The seething noise of celebration did not abate until they had passed through the gatehouse and into the courtyard of Westminster, where he drew a breath of relief.  

_Turn away. Keep on living. Straight on ‘til morning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Source here: http://books.google.com/books?id=mPdfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA19
> 
> Version: 1


	24. For the King—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raise your cup, and Feast.   
> Till Dawn, For the King, All in His Name.

 

With a broad and feline smile of satisfaction, William, Guyenne King of Arms rounded on the riders gathering around him as the procession thinned and pooled out across the palace courtyard. “An excellent triumph,” he pronounced to his impassive audience. The varying degrees of indifference that greeted his verdict did not deter him. “Hark! We cannot yet rest upon our laurels. John, attend upon the King, he has something to tell you this day. Richard—” he hesitated as the elegant herald folded his arms and pressed his lips together. Dull smudges under his eyes and a pale complexion gave Clarence the haunting aspect of a newly risen revenant. His bleak unblinking regard froze the royal herald’s tongue, if only for a fleeting heartbeat. “Very well done,” William concluded lamely, skipping over him to the next man in line.

“Sir Robert.” He addressed the English knight with the barest flicker of curiosity at his presence. “I look forward to overseeing your vigil this evening. I believe Sir Erpingham has the details.” They all followed the direction of his pointing finger. Across the courtyard, the elderly commander of Henry’s archers was surrounded by a small group of his own men. Much like Guyenne, he appeared to be distributing his orders, albeit to a set of far more respectful faces. Robert made his arch smile and nodded farewell to the remaining heralds. Save for one last unreadable glance sidelong, he did not hesitate to spur the grey into the fray, battering through the milling melee with its broad chest and his cheerful nonchalance.

“Montjoy King of Arms.” William lit upon the French herald finally, a grin creasing his smooth expression in wicked promise. Montjoy made a face as he beheld it. “Pray deliver me your command, Guyenne King of Arms,” he said, beckoning, “So that I may have the pleasure of disregarding it.” John snorted loudly to disguise a laugh. The Lancaster herald was the first to dismount, gesturing to Montjoy as he led his horse away on foot. “The usual room,” he called over his shoulder, not waiting for acknowledgement, and left them in pursuit of the king’s swiftly disappearing retinue. “Richard,” Montjoy appealed to the careworn herald for diversion, as they watched John’s meandering progress through the crowd. Here and there, the herald stopped to exchange a leisurely word and a smile with another grinning Englishman.

“Tomorrow, Montjoy,” Richard sighed, “Ask of me anything you wish. Right now I still have my master to answer to. You two lovebirds have the afternoon to yourselves, and may the better man emerge alive in time for the feast.” William beheld his departure with a soft sly snicker. “Now will you listen?” he asked, turning to his last remaining target. Montjoy shrugged as he weighed his options. “I’m always listening.” In the distance, his fellow Frenchmen had dismounted and were being escorted into the palace proper. More than one would end the night on the other side of London town, locked up safely in the Tower; their comfortable and well-furnished prison, from which they could only watch as their country burned. _This is only the first day of many months, and years. Many negotiations._ He was wearied by the thought of it. Only the Archbishop had remained mounted, casting his severe gaze around the courtyard from horseback. He had not yet seen or recognized the herald, and Montjoy felt deeply disinclined to attract his attention.

“You are always avoiding something. Tell me what happened last night.”  
“Must I answer to you now, William?”  
“Do you have something to hide?”

Montjoy turned the full weight of his frank regard on the Englishman. In his tabard of crimson and gold, bearing the arms of the King on his breast, and aseat his imposing black horse, William Bruges had an imperial presence worthy of heralding Caesar’s own triumph. He was rosy and flushed beneath his neat brown beard, and somewhere along the way he had collected a sprinkling of loose laurel in his thick hair. Whether by design, artfully arranged, or out of providence, they gave him a wild pagan aura, ancient, earthy and spiritual. They infused him with the sweet scent of victory, and the black and bloody memory of it. Montjoy made a gesture of warding with a half-hearted smile.

“Only my face,” he said sadly, waving a hand to encompass the gathered splendor. “Only our immense shame.” As a boy came to take his reins, he shook his head and turned his horse around instead. It did not surprise him when the English herald followed smoothly in his footsteps out onto the King’s road. “Give me an hour, Guyenne King of Arms,” he pleaded, “One hour to take in your dressed and garlanded city, before you sit us down for work.” William grinned sharply as he replied, “Work? What interest have I in work? Plenty of time to bicker over cost and price on Monday. This afternoon, I have no command for you except to advise you to stay in bed.” Beneath his languid manner, a prowling and perceptive intent waited.

“And yet you are following me most closely.”  
“I am going to St. Paul’s,” he said reasonably, “We are simply going the same way.”  
“Your Chester is a fine horse, but he will not keep up with mine,” Montjoy pointed out.  
“Try to run and I’ll have her impounded.”  
“Try to have her impounded and I’ll have you discredited.”  
“On what grounds?” William asked, genuinely curious.  
“Paris. Last year.” The threat made him raise his eyebrows in disbelief. A moment later, unable to ascertain if Montjoy had been in earnest, he laughed loudly instead. “We will hang together, Montjoy King of Arms, if we are to match influence in earnest. Peace?”

He offered his right hand, palm up, and breezily the herald ran his fingertips across it, indicating his dissatisfaction with the offer made empty-handed. William withdrew it with a knowing chuckle. As it was, even had Montjoy tried to run, he could not have made it very far, for the road all the way up to Charing Cross and down the length of the Strand into the city was packed shoulder to shoulder and cheek to cheek with celebrants on foot and horse and wagon. Though the king was long past, the pageantry showed no signs of abating. They proceeded languidly past a dozen official stages, and a hundred more makeshift and teeming riotous. Some were no more than banner covered barrels, their impromptu performers more merry and flamboyant than those who held forth beneath wooden arches gilded in genuine gold. Through a fierce storm of flower petals, whipped up by the wind, the two heralds who had been at Agincourt watched its dramatic retelling play out again and again, every enactment more incredible, until the French herald had to force himself not to look away.

“Montjoy, tell me something about the fearless Duke of Burgundy.”

“Will you tell me something about the fearless Duke of Bedford?”

William inclined his head to indicate his agreement, so Monjoy invited his question with a wan gesture.  They halted before the Royal Mews to watch a young man attempt to climb Eleanor’s marble cross. “What do they think of him in the Low Countries?” William’s tone was a studied neutral as he tracked the climber’s progress. The two guards stationed beside the gates had turned to each other, and debated if they should abandon their post to intervene. “This is a surprising line had of questioning,” Montjoy said blandly, but he could not think of any reason to withhold the information. “He is as a younger brother to Duke William, and far more cherished by the Duke of Bavaria than the one he actually shares blood with.” William made a skeptical sound, questioning the herald’s judgment. With a distant smile, Montjoy added, “Together, they had to save the Bishop from his own flock at Othee. Figure by your own logic which brother invites more respect from the good Duke. The one called _fearless_ , who crushed the rebels on the field of battle with his own private army, or the one called _pitiless_ , who returned afterwards to execute their wives and children.”

A great cheer rose up around the towering structure as the climber reached the base of the zenith cross, and with a theatrical bow he swept the laurel crown from his own head and hung it over one arm of the sacred icon. Spying the royal coat of arms on his tabard, one guard came up to William, gesturing at the young man in inquiry, but the herald only grinned and shrugged.

“Who does not cherish a powerful brother in law?” he commented cynically.  
“They went to war together, and were married together, side by side,” Montjoy said, refuting his point of view. “They exchange much more than beloved sisters.”

With shocking speed and daring, the climber leapt from his lofty perch to the wooden roof of a nearby stage. Both heralds started as he smashed thunderously through the thin boards, invoking another wave of yelling from the crowd. “Brave or foolish?” Montjoy murmured, nodding towards the caved-in ceiling. The surface of the raised platform was obscured by a curtain of slowly descending streamers, through which several split planks jutted out, but no man or body could be seen. “Why not both?” said William evenly. “Neither does him any credit.” As they urged their horses into motion to escape the commotion, he caught the eye of the gate guard and pointed to the wreckage. At his direction, both soldiers waded into the crowd to investigate. “But in his defense, it is harder to climb down than up.” Montjoy sighed, “Did it come as a surprise to him, that he should have to climb down?”

“Speaking of beloved sisters?” William prompted, far more invested in his inquiry than the stranger’s uncertain fate. “Have you met the Duchess of Burgundy?” asked the French herald. “Or Bavaria? No?” Montjoy veered to the south side of the Strand, where the road fronted a score of splendid palaces and townhouses, and was better maintained. Fewer potholes and cracks lurked beneath the obscuring bodies of pedestrians, waiting to turn ankles and throw incautious riders. “Neither one is to be trifled with. They share name, and character—Beautiful,” he said, recalling heads turning at a royal ball, including one leering debauched prince of Orleans. “And canny,” he said, recalling that man’s violent downfall. “Fierce inheritors of House Wittelsbach and House Valois. In the absence of their husbands, they rule, and no man questions their say.” Biting his lip he reined in closer to the English herald. “I see something turning over in your mind, William. I must remind you that the Low Countries will belong to His Highness, the Duke of Touraine.”

“Married in August to William’s only daughter,” Guyenne mused, “Yes, I remember. But Sigismund does not like William. Nor does he like Jean _sans Peur_.” They fell into a brooding silence as they passed the empty and blackened ruins of Savoy, prickling with the awareness that some of the animated revelers sharing the street with them could well have been part of the bloodthirsty mob that had stormed and torched John of Gaunt’s opulent palace. “Sigismund? I’m sure he likes the look of Hainault and Holland and Zeeland, seeing as how his niece was newly widowed at Agincourt,” Montjoy returned sarcastically. “Nevertheless, His Highness’s inheritance cannot be disputed. Unless you know something I do not?” He shifted uneasily in the saddle as the Englishman shook his head. His small reassuring smile was entirely unconvincing. “John of Touraine is William’s chosen heir. I do not think his Uncle will challenge him.” _He is far too busy challenging the elder brother for a far greater prize._

“He does not like you, does he? The Duke of Burgundy.”  
“On the contrary he likes me very much.”  
“Ha, in much the same way the Duke of Bedford likes you perhaps,” William said in an undertone.

“Perhaps,” he nodded noncommittally. _They like the sight of my blood._ It was as close to confirmation he would offer Guyenne, and the admission was not lost on the Englishman. As they broached the city walls through Ludgate, the tall spires of St Paul’s loomed ahead, reaching up into bright noontide splendor. There were no more bishops on the stage before the cathedral portal, but a score of choir boys remained, costumes brilliantly glittering. As they raised their sweet high voices in a worshipful hymn, the crowd of spectators grew hushed and reverent. William turned off into the northern yard before the sound of steelshod hooves on paved stone could disturb their solemn enchantment, and Montjoy followed him, voicing a casual statement that was not quite a question.

“Your King has two of the most eligible and desirable husbands in the world beside him. Strange, that they do not wed.” _Strange also, that the only son of Henry Bolingbroke who is married wed his Uncle’s widow, but that at least, is not inexplicable._ “Is it strange?” William asked lightly, “Who and where is that lady to match our heroic Bedford? Our handsome Gloucester?” They were standing by the church’s side entrance, but William did not appear to be in any hurry to dismount, nor was Montjoy satisfied by his nonchalant answer. “Oh yes,” he commented with distant indifference and a sideways glance that struck out for blood, “England’s most glorious sons. They are surely only matched by their magnificent brother.” William caught his eye and frowned. “What did you want to know about the Duke of Bedford?” asked the English herald, scratching his beard, the only sign of apprehension to pass his cool facade. “What exactly do you ask?” _What passes in your royal family? What else is shared in blood?_ Calm and remorseless, Montjoy held his gaze.

“Equal exchange, William,” he said.  
“Not so equal,” Guyenne complained, and brow knitted, looked around for some salvation.

Montjoy was content to wait out his reluctance in silence. He patted his horse’s neck, soothing her as church bells pealed out suddenly, coming north from St. Martin and south from St. Peter, but the soaring towers overhead were mercifully silent. “John, perhaps,” William murmured at length, surreptitiously, as if they were not tucked away alone beneath the shadow of the great cathedral. “But not Humphrey. He has been known to fall for a pretty face.” Montjoy nodded wordless, his suspicion coalescing out of mist, out of marsh fog to reveal its haunting form. With a gesture he indicated that he would leave the English herald to his business, but William held onto his sleeve for one last question. “To his face, he is called _fearless_ , but behind his back, they whisper _kinslayer_. Tell me in short, what kind of a man is the Duke?”

“Let me put this in a way an Englishman can understand,” Montjoy said softly, and William scoffed at his mocking smile. “In motive and personality, he is not so different from a certain former Duke of Hereford. Kindred spirits, you might say. It is no surprise they almost went on Crusade together. What a different time we might be in, if they had.”

“This comparison is not a kind one,” William said with a grimace. “For whom?” Montjoy countered, “By all accounts the Duke deserves his fearsome appellation. Both of them, he has earned in full. He fights as he acts, completely without fear. He is a straightforward man whose actions follow his intentions. You want to know how to treat with him? Treat with him to his face and he will accord you the same.”

“Fine words for a man who sheared the first layer of your skin,” William announced. “ _Pardon? Je ne comprends pas_ ,” said the French herald staunchly, a blank expression coming over him, and in light of his stubborn denial William waved away his own comment as if he had not spoken. “If he is akin to Hereford,” mused the Englishman, chuckling as the thought came to him, “Then it is of his son we should be most wary.” Montjoy shot him a thin, twisted half-smile. “The Count of Charolais is courteous, cultured and chivalrous,” he said distantly. “He is an admired knight commander and a discerning patron of the arts.” _Nothing like your wild prince. Nothing like your conquering king._  

“My God, such generous praise for the son, or do I hear criticism in another name?”

“Dear William, do you hear another name pass by my lips?” he asked delicately, but he was already flicking his reins, ending the conversation as he continued around the church and into the heaving depths of Cheapside. Here, where the fountains ran with spiced wine and the air stewed sweet and heavy in laurel and lavender and rosemary, he passed through the celebration untouched, observant and impassive. He could imagine describing the sight for his king; the many miles of crimson bunting, as if entire rows of houses were joining hands, and the constant busy surf, as if the streets themselves were dancing, human faces losing distinction in the surge, human voices concatenating into a wordless appealing rhythm. He could imagine the deep and weary frown, the lined cheeks and thin lips. Equally, he could imagine eyes devoid of understanding, moving in madness. And just as he imagined it, his thoughts flickered away, fearful of the malformed construct, alighting on another face. Another name.

_You do not._

*

He did not stir when John entered the room, but as soon as the Englishman climbed into the bed behind him he snapped awake, stiffening instantly. “John, I—” Montjoy uttered, in a moment of painful realization, unwilling to turn to face him. “I know, Jacques,” John whispered in his ear, gently putting his arms around him. “I may be Old Man Time, but I remember.” As they breathed in union, still and silent, long heartbeats passing without either man moving, Montjoy relaxed again with a soft uncertain sigh. “I remember a time when you were carefree,” John murmured, one hand passing over his hot forehead, then descending over his eyes, blacking out his aching stare. They both knew it would not help to obscure the gut-rending visions following hard by the affectionate touch. In the flesh-tinged darkness, he did not close his eyes. “This is growing up, old man,” he grumbled, “Have you forgotten what it means? You are too far gone along the moon cycle, and turning back to a child on me.”

“And you were fifty when you were fifteen.” John’s breath raised the skin on the back of his neck as his mentor held him close. Once, it would have been comforting, even inviting, now it set his nerves aflame, and they both knew. They both tried, as far as they could, to control the trembling that seized him wholly, but its snarling tangled roots were bedded at the center of his heart, and would not be excised without taking the flesh entire. His breath was racing despite himself, despite both arms folded tightly against his chest. One was still tied there and the other hand flexed open and closed, trying too hard not to clench. “This is not growing but slowly dying,” said John, as he quietly suffered in tandem. Through his weathered palm he felt the stretch of Montjoy’s grim smile as the herald said, “Two of the same thing. Two faces of the same coin. So what if one side is fairer? It changes nothing.”

“It is the difference that makes life worth living,” said the Englishman sadly. John had shirked tabard and doublet, but not his soft wool shirt. Its warm itchiness, separating their bare skins, was as clear indication as any to the herald that his former teacher had not forgotten. “How have I invited this sermon, _mon maistre_?” he breathed out, suspecting and dreading the answer. “You know how,” it came, dreaded as a graveyard whine, freezing him numb and searing his vision white. “What did Henry have to say to you?” he asked, barely breathing, and then thinking twice, could not wait for an unbearable reply. “No,” he denied it hoarsely, shaking his head, and on the back of it John kissed him tenderly. “It’s fine,” the Englishman consoled, his soothing tone familiar from a hundred ancient arguments, no more effective than it had been fifteen years former. No more able to calm his distress. “Who says that? Who dares to claim that?” he asked, choking over the bitter words, “Herald of House _Lancaster_?” A quiet chuckle disarmed the harsh accusation. “I am one of Henry’s heralds,” said John, tightening his embrace as Montjoy struggled to break free of it, “But you are my only apprentice.”

“So teach me to live simply.” He made his heartfelt petition from beneath a clear star-speckled night sky, peering into the ashen depths of a damp, crackling campfire. Where there were only two, master and apprentice, French and English, and the world was breathtakingly simple. “We two are poor teacher and poorer student,” John said, “I will settle for teaching you how to live at all.” Montjoy threw off his mentor’s hand and thrashed around stiffly to confront the Englishman with an anguished glare. “Look at me, John,” he said roughly, “I am alive now. I am fine now, but in his name, I will be lost.” The Englishman was shaking his head with a knowing look, with a smug, disconcerting smile, and snarling, the herald pressed a wrapped hand over his mouth, “Don’t say anything, if you only mean to annoy me.”

Newly solemn, John lifted Montjoy’s hand away and delicately smoothed it flat, drawing out the tension with his tentative fingertips. “I see you, and I remember how you used to look,” he said sadly, “How you used to be. You are lost now, but in his name you could be found again.”

“Enough,” Montjoy cried out, and began to cough with a hard racking edge. “Enough from you as well,” he grimaced, tasting blood in the back of his throat, “I have both heard enough and said enough of his name. Monday, I will give him his messages, and Tuesday, I will go home.” His rage subsided into a whisper as he raised his hollow gaze for understanding. “John, I just want to be able to go home.”

“Hush,” said the English herald, patting him on the back. “It will be fine. Go back to sleep.” He tugged the disturbed bed covers up over them both. “It will be fine, I promise.” Montjoy closed his eyes and huffed, “Hush yourself, old man. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Back to back, sharing only warmth, only companionship, he could fall back to sleep, but he could not help that it was stiff and uneasy.

*

He woke in candlelit twilight, to the sound of Edward tolling out a clarion call to evening feast. The largest bell in the Sanctuary campanile had a deep, demanding voice that penetrated mere wood and stone, mere flesh and bone, striking the body with its heavy brassy tone. Bleary-eyed and lazy, he raised his head only fractionally, and watched from bed as John dressed up for the night. The Englishman changed his dark riding hose to a lightweight pair in flamboyant scarlet, and matched it with a doublet of the same strident shade. Through the long slashes in the sleeves, wrist to elbow, a vividly contrasting indigo peeked out. Montjoy laughed aloud as John began to tease more of his shirt out of the daggered slits, drawing his attention, and his disapproving frown.

“Here is one peacock ready for the spit.”  
“At least I am _ready_. Come here.”

John snatched a damp washcloth from a nearby stand and hurled it at him, dispelling the remainder of his lingering indolence as it landed with cold and clammy precision on his head. He sighed and wiped his face gingerly before climbing out of bed. Vertical, and aching, he hesitated before putting one foot in front of the other. On the night of the triumph, the feast at Westminster was not to be missed, however heavy of a burden it might seem. He had braved triumphal procession, and streets glazed thick in celebration. What was one more table set in gold and crimson?

“How about this?” John offered him a bright scarlet shirt in fine soft linen. He cringed and covered his eyes at the sight of it. “You remember the color of my tabard? The Valois arms?” Montjoy asked drily. “I have my own clothes,” he said, but the English herald would not let him pass to the dresser where he had stored his meagre belongings. “And you have one arm tied to your chest. You need something wider. Here,” he cast another shirt over Montjoy’s head before the herald could react, and pulled down firmly on it. Tied up in the loose garment, with his free arm pinned by its constricting folds, he staggered backwards as John gave him the gentlest push, and fell back heavily onto the bed.

“Thank you, and please stop helping me now,” he gasped, muffled through the close-knitted wool. With a wicked snicker, John helped him put his arm through the sleeve, and pulled him back to his feet, where he could take stock of the shirt he had been unceremoniously dressed in. The dark unpatterned brown, nearly black in shade, met with his approval, and over it he struggled one-handed into the embroidered tabard he had brought for the occasion. It was basic in cut and muted in color, but on the right breast and the left sleeve, it bore the coat of arms of the royal House of Valois in loving detail. As armor, in heavy broadcloth and rich golden thread, he strapped it on, and belted it, but it did not reassure him in the slightest.

“Ready?”

He recognized a familiar worry in his mentor’s eyes, and took a deep breath. Without the use of his right arm, he felt unexpectedly vulnerable, though it made no real difference. Every movement brought a weak spinning vertigo and every turn of his head flashed with razor-edged light. “As ever,” he answered, mustering a pale smile.  

*

“For you, King of Arms.” A filled cup struck the table in front of him, startling him from his shuteyed brow-furrowed reverie. “You look like you could use it,” said John Clarence, as he jovially shoved aside his father’s herald to join them at their feast table. Montjoy had been holding his aching head in his hand, and now raised it to peer at the offered gift with weary uncertainty. “You bring a man a cup at a feast, John?” asked Richard curiously, “Where wine flows freely?” The cheerful young knight winked as he nudged the cup forward. “I bring it from up there,” he said, nodding to the set of high tables spanning a full third of the great hall, “It is no common wine.” With a wan smile, Montjoy raised it towards him, and Clarence struck it with his own cup before they both drank deeply. “Thank you,” said the herald, appreciating its rich quality, as rarified and precious as promised. “Don’t thank me yet,” Clarence replied with a rueful grin.

“My God, you are a harbinger of thunder and lightning,” Montjoy breathed out. “Next time I shall know to hide as your shadow passes by.” The feast had barely entered its third course, and he was already exhausted with the effort of it, so much so that his friends endeavored to leave him to his silent grimace, eyes closed and counting out the rhythm of every ragged breath, seeking a calm that still eluded him. One more strident and tuneless verse of the Agincourt carol threatened to send him scrabbling for a sharp knife to end it all. One more drunk and uncouth knight leering at him in contempt would soon see him bloody his hands for the first time. Or his cheek, one way or another. He was breathless in the thick, crushing atmosphere of unwatered wine and roasting spices, twitching at every snap of avian bone, every cup pounding a flesh-strewn tabletop. He was pale and blinking in the brilliant glare of five hundred purified white candles. Every flame found a hateful English face, and bathed it in stark illumination. But in the end it was their gaping joyful grins that made him ache straight through his weeping skin to his straining spirit.

“What is it?” asked John Herald, who was seated to his right, and frowning protectively. “They want a translator,” Clarence replied with a shrug. “French and English? Leave the poor man be. Any one of us heralds is fully capable,” John said stubbornly, gesturing all up and down their table. “Certainly,” Clarence said. His small sly smile was received by Richard with a sigh, and by John with a grimace, but Montjoy accepted it in fatalistic silence. _They do not need one, yet they want one to play their games._ “However, the famed Marshal Boucicaut would prefer his own countryman I think, and I see here only one who can claim to be so.” He put his hand on his heart, over his father’s royal coat of arms, and promised sincerely, “It is none of my doing, to be sure. What is it you heralds say? Spare the messenger?” John snorted indignantly, opening his mouth to protest, and Montjoy forestalled him with a sidelong glance. “John,” he said, pushing off the bench to his feet. “What my Lord Marshal requires, I am here to provide.” He patted Lancaster’s shoulder as he went. “He is one of our greatest knights. How can I leave him to twist in the wind?”

_He is one of our greatest knights, and here in this festive light, he is so poor and pitiable. He should not suffer their scorn. He should have a scapegoat to draw off all his enemies._

The seated Lords did not notice as herald and knight approached the high table from the back, insinuating themselves amidst the scurrying servants. At his right hand, Henry had his brothers, lined up by him in order of their age, and further down, curving around perpendicular, his Uncles, and their wives. At his left hand, accorded due honor, his lordly prisoners, and then his own noble lords. As they neared his shoulder, they caught the barest fleeting edge of his silver laughter, falling in time to some languid retort from Orleans that had made his brother frown and look away. “Your Majesty,” John of Clarence murmured in his ear, “Here is your translator.”

Henry, turning around with his wide and irresistible smile, with a shine to his eyes that secret, and searing, made him shiver. Mute, hand over heart, he bowed. “Montjoy King of Arms,” said the King, as John backed away, disappearing behind the high chair to reappear at his father’ shoulder. Henry beckoned him closer. Standing between the young head of House Orleans, and his conquering captor, the King of all England, he had an unparalleled view down the length of the great hall with its twenty teeming tables. Clamor and smoke alike rose to obscure the high-beamed ceiling, and candlelight descended, heavy and bright, to pool by battered bronze and beaten gold; to rim the embroidered trim of shirts patterned with delicate curling fronds, and to lie upon miles of links and chains and crucifixes. He kept his eyes forward, and held his silence, composed beneath ten sets of staring eyes, one side prickling hostile, the other tasting sharply bitter, and both falling away before the fierce regard of their imperial central figure.

_As your father spoke French in his exile, so now we will speak English at your table._

“I wish to convey to the Marshal my admiration of his book of a Hundred Ballads,” said Henry, catching the veteran knight’s eye. “ _Livre des Cent Ballades?_ ” Boucicaut murmured in surprise as he received Montjoy’s translation. Grim and grey-haired, he did not seem to be the same man who had written a hundred gentle verses in defense of faithful, courtly love. _If Nicopolis had not been enough to break him, now he bears Agincourt as well. An ocean of blood enough to drown one strong man’s spirit._ “I thank you for the thought, your Majesty,” said the herald, for the Marshal Boucicaut, “I have not thought of it in years.”

“Was he surprised that of the thirteen responses he received, fully half did not agree with him?”

The question gave Orleans cause to chuckle softly under his breath. He did not disdain the language of the table, though he spoke it with a strong accent. “The Marshal past or present?” he wondered to no one in particular, raising his cup in Boucicaut’s direction, “Time passes and the answer changes.” He knew well the Marshal’s handiwork, his own father having written a _chant royal_ response in favor of fidelity. It was not lost upon the young Duke that, in hindsight, Louis d’Orleans’ duplicitous sentiments cast a strange crooked light over all the others.

“Has it?” Henry pressed with interest. He was near the same age now as that proud young knight presenting his poetry to a jaded French court, baring all of his grand ideals with sad appealing naivety.  He had been barely three when thirteen responses had been made, revealing a world already failing to live up to romantic expectations. The Marshal sunk into brooding contemplation, and his answer, when it came, was forceful. “ _Pas du tout.”_

“Not at all,” repeated the herald, his rendition cool and emotionless. “I was not surprised then, and would be even less surprised now.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as the French knight finally acknowledged Orleans’ gesture, and drained a cup dry with him. “One does not write a hundred verse discourse on loyalty in love, expecting the whole world to concur,” he continued, “There is no need for debate, if there are no dissenters.” Henry gave him the point with a generous smile.

“Since your Majesty bears such flattering interest,” said the herald, as Boucicaut struck back across the discussion, like a hound scenting warm blood, hearing a beating heart, and disconcerting just the one man who was watching him closely, his paling translator. “Perhaps your eminent response could also be recorded.” One hand on his chin thoughtful, Henry hummed distractedly as he considered an answer. A simple melody that drove what blood remained from the herald’s veins, hollowing him out under the bruised skin and blank expression. That, light-headed, he pretended not to hear.

 _Nothing but a trap._ He winced internally. _A pit dug for the downfall of the sincere. Tread lightly, Henry, or better yet, go not at all._

“No, sadly, I am but a plain soldier, lacking gifts of composition,” said the King, softly self-deprecating, “I shall not flaunt a lack of eloquence. I shall only say, I am, as you are, for loyalty.”

The reply that swooped in, barbed and primed heart-seeking, caught the herald’s breath in his throat. He hesitated, and not waiting for translation, the Duke of Bedford answered tersely from down the table. “Is that a subject you can bring up, Marshal?” he asked in a low growl, “Dare you claim you French emerge free of deceit and hypocrisy?” A humorless black smile spread across the Frenchman’s face, as Montjoy relayed both questions. Henry had not relinquished his pleasant disposition, but there was a new edge to his glittering eye, a chasm-side promise of ruin that had already been delivered in full to one French jest.

_You made your response at Southampton. Not with ballad, but in blood. One Lord, in particular, was dragged through the streets._

“So I do claim,” said the herald, as calmly as the Marshal had spoken. “Just as I claimed at St Inglevert, and to a full score of English challengers proved it. Who accuses me of deceit and hypocrisy?”

“Your reputation precedes you, but it does not scare me,” Bedford snorted.

Across three seated faces, one languid, one impassive and one attentive, the Marshal stared down the English Duke, and quietly replied to Montjoy’s translation. Implacable, and earth-shaking, stunning the herald with its vicious malice. Bedford, and Clarence, who had not heard the response, turned expectantly to him. Gloucester, just now grasping the soaring tension to his left, had broken off his own conversation to listen in. Montjoy glanced at Henry, uncertain, and imperceptibly, the King shook his head. _No._ But the Duke of Orleans, smiling serene, translated for his countryman, “He said, he regrets that your father did not come to joust. And he regrets that he did not join them at Nicopolis, as he had promised.”

_He regrets not breaking his lance across your father’s shield._

_He regrets that Henry, Fourth of his name, had not died at Nicopolis._

_In grand company, severed limbs and three thousand crusader heads._

_Even the Lord Marshal only survived because the Count of Nevers had fallen to his knees before the Sultan, and pleaded for his life._

_Who would have pleaded for the life of the Duke of Hereford?_

Snarling, white-hot, the Duke of Bedford shot upright, toppling his chair as he hurled the contents of his cup at the French side of the table, not caring if he was to insult the Duke, or the Marshal. Neither man moved, for one was welcoming with his cutthroat smirk, and the other had a face cast from bleak iron, an anvil waiting to break the poorly forged blade. It was not for either of them, but for Henry, whose triumphal feast it was, whose expression was bitterly aching, that the herald leaned in front of his own high Lords, and allowed the stream of wine to drench him face and shoulders. “My Lord of Bedford,” he said, with a wry, sorrowful smile, as he soaked up the remnants streaming off his cheek in the bandages around his palm, and felt it hiss acidly into his scrapes and gashes. “I humbly apologize if my poor translation has given you some offense.”

“John,” said Henry, casting a warning at his brother in no uncertain tone, who grudgingly subsided as Clarence’s natural son picked up his fallen chair for him. Behind Henry’s back, and his father’s, the young knight was wearing a wide, irrepressible grin. “Thank you, herald,” Henry sighed, gesturing for Montjoy to withdraw. “That will be all.”

_I wish I could say it has been a fun game._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2
> 
> I especially like this hilarious version of the Agincourt carol: https://youtu.be/fQZiW8zRSUY?t=10


	25. All in His Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lay down your sword, Hold Vigil.  
> Till Dawn, For the King, All in His Name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning!: This chapter is rated Mature.

 

Montjoy retreated all the way down the servant passages to emerge short of breath and coughing in the smoky haze of the palace kitchens. The head cook, who bustled over importantly to enquire if he had brought a message from the great hall, returned to hydra-headed dominion over the steamy swamp of stoves as soon as the herald shook his head. Weaving through a dozen sweating, clamoring bodies, Montjoy collected for himself a shallow bowl of water and a clean rag to dab ineffectively at the wine stains. He sat in silence on a barrel in the corner, and watched as platters of the next course were meticulously arranged, sprig and fin. Would the delicate display be appreciated by any Lord or King? He compressed the cool wet cloth against his forehead and wondered.

_Fourth course, soft sole and roasted skate for the high table. Baked salmon and rich buttery turbot. The martial lords will scorn the sea’s offerings. Their sweet watery flavor pales before the taste of fresh blood. And for the rest of the hall, herrings all pressed into a solid block, shellfish stewed in great clay pots, and long limp chains of slippery eels. If any war-weary fighting men used to rotten rations have saved room for the fourth course._

Before long, Clarence appeared at the same portal, and waved away the same anxious culinary regard. Montjoy averted his gaze and shaded his face with his hand, but it was not enough to deter the grinning young knight. “Most excitement I’ve had all evening,” John said, leaning forward to inspect the herald closely.  Wine had soaked dark and sticky into his clothes and stuck the loose locks of his hair together so that they stood up haphazardly wherever he had run his fingers through, giving him the windblown air of a long journey. Under his breath the master of the kitchen muttered peevishly about unwelcome company, but his assistants cast their curious glances sidelong at the mismatched pair of visitors. They did not recognize herald and knight, but the breast-borne arms of two clashing royal Houses were not to be mistaken. “So glad you are entertained,” Montjoy replied, pressing the back of his hand over his eyes. The odor of wine and blood strongly intruded, wetly mingling, one from the other, indistinguishable and intoxicating. “How else may I be of service tonight?”

“I could use a good brawl,” Clarence suggested. He laughed at the ensuing gloomy sigh and clapped a hand on Montjoy’s shoulder, only laughing harder as he winced away. “Cheer up, herald. The king is not ungrateful. He sends you his concern. He wants to know how you are.” Montjoy shrugged, and deposited the rag back into the bowl, giving up his efforts. “Is his concern cause for cheer?” With his sincere spirit, Henry sat his guests at his side, and was surprised when like rabid hounds they bit the hand that lifted them. _The Marshal does not leave six thousand fallen behind so easily. His friends. His men. His command._ He raised a bleak and strained smile, paling to maintain it. “His _gratitude_? Are you bloodthirsty Englishmen not disappointed? I know the Marshal would like nothing more than to spit your Duke on the point of his lance. Perhaps I should have let him try.” _Even to die upon the field of valor, better than dying alone in the Tower._

Frowning for the first time, somber like a new man, the English knight grabbed the herald’s collar and jerked him off his uneven seat. “Come here,” he commanded. Young as he was, his tone was harsh and his fierce grip as he pulled Montjoy into the nearby larder was irrefutable. _What a fine fighting spirit for a young man. What a deserving son of House Plantagenet, though one that will never inherit_. Montjoy did not resent Henry’s first and eldest nephew his imperative touch. He accepted it as he would have the prerogative of any lord-in-waiting, with calm resignation. “Why, _mon seigneur,_ ” murmured the herald, losing none of his pale smile in the lonely flickering shadow of the vacant room. “ _Que vous avez de grandes dents.”_ It was his turn to laugh, low and hollow, at the Englishman’s expression as he was pushed up against a bare stone wall. _My, what big teeth you have._

With a warning glare, John Clarence chased away an approaching scullery boy. Those servants close enough to have seen the exchange prudently turned their backs and bent their heads in silence. Over the general noise of clinking dishes and roaring furnace fires, they heard the head cook cursing as his errand boy came back to him empty-handed. The English knight dropped his voice to a whisper so as not be overheard. “How I admire you, King of Arms. That daring fearless pride becomes you.” Baring his teeth in a sick grin, he released the herald’s shirt and grabbed his hair instead, dragging his head back to expose his throat. “You know what you are?” He had drawn his knife into his right hand, the blade flashing amber in the candlelight as he raised it. “You are a splinter of the heart of our King. Wandering about so openly vulnerable. So weak and tempting. If I cut you with this knife, he would bleed. In one stroke I can pierce your heart, and his.”

Under the fierce light of his fervor, Montjoy’s wry amusement bleached like dry bone in a cool desert wind, colorburned and melancholic. “Cut then, John Clarence,” said the herald sadly, his exhalation misting his reflection in the polished blade. “With what shall I stop you? By my hand?” He raised one finger to the brandished knife, touching the edge so tentatively, and with a sigh, flipped his hand over to reveal a jagged crimson imprint on bandages blotched with spilled wine. “I have tried. Or with this?” He tapped the insignia embroidered on his right breast. It had not been spared the spreading stains. Its golden lustre was darkly tarnished and barely gleaming in the distant candlelight. “It has been quartered by lions,” he sighed, “and means nothing to you Englishmen.” With an audible hiss, Clarence sucked a breath through his gritted teeth and hesitated over his own vicious instinct.

“Does it frustrate you that your great King has a weakness?” Montjoy rested his hand on the young man’s shoulder and looked into his shadowed eyes with sympathy. The hand on the knife’s hilt was white-knuckled. It was callused on the palm, and fingers, but on its back it was smooth and unlined. “Or is it the extent of the helplessness that causes your distress?” he asked quietly. Clearly unsatisfied, yet cognizant of his own impotence, Clarence shook off his touch and thrust him away with a growl. “Oh, you should appreciate this feeling, knight of England. Come to know it. This sheer weakness,” murmured the herald as he staggered back against the shrouded shelves, “In our masters’ name, we are all made helpless eventually. One way or another.”

_All in his name, we will fight and bleed and worry, and he will know only the barest sliver of it. This is not the same relationship you have had with your father. This is the nature of master and servant. This is the price you pay for your adoration._

Clarence snorted and paced, irritation steaming off his hunched shoulders. “I know what I am,” Montjoy said, adjusting his shirt and smoothing down his hair nonchalantly. “I have paid for it in blood. With what shall I console you, Englishman?”

“What a fool I am,” Clarence huffed as he sheathed his knife and folded his arms. Still annoyed, still wordlessly angry, nonetheless he flashed a thin and cynical smile. “To draw my own blade where my Lords have tried and failed. To think that I could scare some sense into you.” Like lightning striking, it illuminated his youth; his good humor returning like a sense of blasted freshness after a spring storm.

“Stay your hand and save yourself the anguish. Simply give me your advice, I will appreciate it.”  
“My advice? Be wary. Stay close to Henry.”  
“Unusual sentiments,” Montjoy said with a small distracted smile. “Yet, you have my thanks. I am glad your father has not changed his mind.”  
“This is my mind, Herald. I do not know his, nor will you know when my father has set himself against you. Not until it is too late.”

“Nor will it be by your hand,” the herald murmured to himself. _Not his precious son._ The young knight frowned, uncomprehending. “I have some faith in you, just yet,” Clarence avowed, offering his hand by way of casual apology, “Try not to squander it by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.” Montjoy grasped it briefly to demonstrate his appreciation. “That is the entire basis of my profession,” he pointed out, as Clarence turned to leave. “So it is. It pains us all that you are so good at it,” shot the English knight over his shoulder, stalking off in a scattering of cooks and servers as they scrambled out of his way.

*

“Why are you here?” came the anxious question, as he rounded the Choir’s screen wall and entered the hushed interior circle of high-backed chairs. “What has happened now?” William Bruges raised his head from the large book in his hands and set it aside on the empty seat beside him. He had been studying it beneath the lit tines of a three-tiered wrought iron candle stand; the only source of light in the ceiling-less wooden-walled room, and all the radiance of its dozen dancing flames barely delineated the steep arches soaring overhead. It showed the Englishman’s face twisted by a grim suspicious frown as he came around it to confront the approaching herald. “Here you are,” Montjoy replied lightly, handing him the parcel he had brought all the way from the kitchens at Westminster to England’s greatest cathedral, retracing their afternoon route, the exertion of which had soaked him in a fine layer of sweat. Its telltale sheen, and the lurid winestains decorating his shoulders, William took in with a rapidly narrowing eye.

“What is this?” he demanded, hefting it. Some liquid sloshed about within, and the herald winced at the sound.  
“Your supper, I am told.” Montjoy offered him a small wave as he sank into a stall seat, little disguising his relief, “No need to thank me.”  
“Oh, Thank you,” the Englishman hesitated, momentarily disrupted.

Then, his towering stack of misgivings reasserted their precarious pressures, threatening to topple with a single ill-placed doubt. “Why have you brought this? Hiding from more drunks? More bandits? Once again, you find you can no longer show your face at the feast?” He indicated the state of the herald’s appearance with a terse wave. “In this light, those winestains look much like blood, my friend.”

“Your king sits his captives at his left hand, and his brothers at his right. Wildcats and hunting hounds shoulder by thigh. What do you think happened?” Montjoy asked with a wry smile, picturing an amusing scene from a new and blasphemous Gospel; an Ark where the animals had not gone quietly. They had not heard His calming word, and laid into each other with enthusiasm, tooth and claw and nail, all presided over by a silently suffering Noah.

“Dear God, drawn swords at dawn?” William blanched as he considered the bloody prospect. _Impossible, on a Sunday._ Montjoy knew he was tired when the thought of it nearly made him laugh hysterically.  
“As you can see, the challenge did not reach its intended mark.”  
“Which was?”  
“Take a guess.”  
“The Marshal Boucicaut?”  
“Just as expected of the astute Guyenne King of Arms,” he teased softly.

They were the only two speaking in the aching solitude of the cavernously hollow church, and unconsciously they made small voices that were accustomed to volume and clarity. “Venture one more for the challenger?” After a moment’s thought, William said, “The Duke of Gloucester?” Languidly, Montjoy smiled, and corrected, “The Duke of Bedford, in fact.” The cloth-wrapped package now forgotten in his hands, William sat in the next seat over to put his head to the herald’s and interrogate in earnest.

“What was the argument?”  
“Do you know of _Livre des Cent Ballades_?”  
“Some book of ballads? What of it?”  
“A book of one hundred romantic ballads on faithful love, penned in the names of three glorious young knights of France. One was beheaded at Nicopolis. One died a prisoner of the Sultan a year later. And one survives, Marshal of France.”  
“So he was mocked for it?”

“Far from it,” Montjoy sighed, contemplating his bandaged hand. There was no clean beige left in the wrapping. It had been thoroughly dyed red and purple, and the drying stains made it stiff like old bark, rigid and unyielding to his need. “Henry was full of admiration.” William pursed his lips in confusion. “Is this so incomprehensible to you Englishmen?” the herald groused. “He is the bloodied survivor of Nicopolis, and now Agincourt. At the first disaster, he lost two he held next to his heart. Now, he sits at your English triumphal feast and is served the same old bitterness. Except now it is a hundred times more bitter. It only ever gets more bitter.” Simply speaking of it brought a hint of acrid black flavor to his tongue, and made him cough roughly until his throat ached. “He does not need to be reminded of the past, but since he is forced to choke it down, he returns the favor without mercy.”

“I see. He said something to Henry that John could not stand for.”  
“He said to Henry, what you hold of love, and fidelity, was made clear at Southampton. A man paid his skin and bone to cross that line. In agony he crossed it and never returned.”

_Those sweet ballads were never meant as condemnation._

“The Marshal may be a soldier firstly, his words are just as wounding as his sword,” William sighed, “He wields them just as ruthlessly. Fortunate then, for the rest of us, that you intercepted the insult. We can only hope the rest of the night passes without incident.” Montjoy tugged at his tabard self-consciously. _Perhaps I should have let him, at fifty one, hold up his lance to the twenty six years of Bolingbroke’s son. He would have unhorsed the father. But the son?_ “They have no interpreter at least. Harder to give offense when both sides refuse to speak the same language.”

With only one arm free he had not relished the thought of changing his outfit to rejoin the feast. Instead, he had volunteered to make a delivery for the pair of reluctant arguing servants at the kitchen’s back exit. The walk was strenuous for his bruised muscles and aching back, but beneath the calm, cloudless sky he had reclaimed some peace. Most of the afternoon’s merriment had withdrawn down the King’s road into the city proper, and the Strand was silent and silver in the crystalline moonlight, restful for a nameless, hooded traveler.

Satisfied with his understanding of what had transpired, William stood up again, his attention diverting to the parcel in his hands. A careful examination turned up an incriminating dark blotch, which he pointed out to the herald. “Is this blood?” he asked suspiciously. “ _C’est la vie_ ,” Montjoy shrugged, showing off his wounded hand with an unapologetic grin, “Life’s not perfect.”

“Will you stay and keep watch, while I eat? I will not be gone long.”  
“Of course, dear William, but what will I watch for?”  
“It is an all-night vigil. What else but snoring knights and secret trysts?” the English herald chuckled, leaving him with a sincere gesture of gratitude. “Please, watch over my fierce warlike charges, so they do not forswear themselves.”

*

Alone in God’s vast House, every breath catching ragged and echoing hollow in his chest, he wandered back around the pilgrim’s path to the raised central altar. There, seven swords had been laid down in ritual offering. Bathed, and clothed in pristine, flawless white, seven had knelt and given up name and arms for their sovereign. Only come the dawn through the round eastern rose would they reclaim all they were. _In Henry’s name_ , he thought, touching a reverent hand to his lips as he dared to raise his gaze to the jeweled crucifix, making a wordless prayer whose meaning wavered and transformed with each heartbeat. They would be made more than they ever were. _Only in his name, they rise_. The seven blades were plain, being borne out of the mud of Agincourt by common hands, but they were the seven proudest of two score that had made their fortune in the space of one red-tinged afternoon, giving over to Henry his noblest prisoners. He recognized only one. That afternoon he had seen it drawn and flashing across the back of a dappled grey gelding with a name it could not hope to live up to.

_Gringolet was ready, and girt with a saddle_  
_That gleamed fully gayly, with many gold fringes_  
_The bridle with bars about, with bright gold bound,  
_ _That all glittered and glowed, as gleam of the sun._

“As gold purified,” he whispered with a hint of irony, reaching out to brush the leather-bound hilt, paying some unknown and invaluable respect, “As man of tale most true.” At the corner of his eye, a flicker of white drew his gaze down the southern arm of the immense cruciform, and made him swear under his breath. “ _Quand on parle du loup._ ” _Speak of the devil. The wolf. And it comes. Horns and tail. It shows itself._ With a smile sure and sincere, in a robe pale white and lined royal red, Robert beckoned to him with one hand. He was leaning against the door of his assigned chapel, and holding a finger up to his lips in a surreptitious gesture for silence. Against his own better judgment, knowing full well and already regretting, the herald went down the aisle.

“Yes, Seigneur d’Upavon _?_ ” he inquired softly, stopping with a wary armslength between them. An old familiar fear beat away upon its bony cage bars with thin and fragile wings, never given form or name, but nonetheless it moved the air with its fluttering. Fear, he thought it was, but it may as well have been one of a score of other like emotions, impossible to pick apart in the heart’s darkness. “You are distant,” Robert commented. _Watchful, and skittish, as prey tends to be._ His hoarse whisper suggested his throat was dry and his lips stiff from many hours spent kneeling in silence. _How simply that vow breaks. If I set any store by it, I would question your honor. If I was a clever man, I would fear what might break next._

“Your friend William Bruges suggested to me that I should not treat with you myself,” he continued, backing out of the doorway and into the chapel, his finger still crooked in its slyly teasing shape. Montjoy matched him step for step until he had passed through the wrought iron screen dividing the chapel space from the aisle. “That I should let him negotiate the ransoms,” Robert said with a small chuckle, “lest I get cheated right out of hearth and home. He insisted.”

“My friend, you say.” The herald canted his head, amused. “So he is. I shall not yet name Guyenne King of Arms a liar. I am sure he has your best interests at heart.”

“How will you cheat me?” asked the English knight, who had turned back to consider his lone vigil partner, a slim silver cup holding a single tall candle in a pooling translucent slurry that reflected countless rainbows, its flame long as a man’s finger and its time half done. He raised a hand to caress its simple bottom curve. It was meant to burn all night, straight and unwavering, and in the windless stone room, it was as ancient a symbol as any graven offering. It should have lit the knight’s solemn devotion, but now it played shadows across his sharp and seeking gaze.

“With many sweet words,” Montjoy replied lightly, “and many empty promises. What do I bring to barter for the freedom of my Lords, but these?” In one startling breath Robert lunged out, closing the distance, one arm snaking past to swing the chapel door shut with barely a snicker from its well-oiled hinges. The herald found himself bracketed by the Englishman’s arms, back to the cool black iron grating. Its fanciful curling ridges and forged studs dented his flesh as he pressed against it. Robert licked his lips, and said to him, “As sweet and empty as you can be, you will not receive a better offer than this, I promise.” Wicked, and arch, he leant in to whisper. “Give me a kiss, and I will give you the young Count for a single pound.”

“Ha,” Montjoy released the breath he had been holding with a small scornful sound. “I think not.”  
“Why not?” Robert grinned, showing his teeth. “You were willing to give blood. What is a kiss?”  
“Blood for blood,” said the herald evenly. “Fair trade. But a kiss cannot be bought like this. I do not offer it up for exchange.”

“Very good,” Robert said as he pressed in, and his lips brushed the herald’s fleetingly. Feline, and playful, he caught hold of Montjoy’s hand as it came in to resist him, and put it to his mouth, tasting the edge of the stained linen wrappings. _Wine and blood, fading to the same dull red._ Like an ageless vampire child he sucked at the taste of earth and iron and smiled appreciatively. “I am not a merchant but a soldier,” he said, pinning the hand up against the black iron. “I may not barter but I can _take_. You will give regardless. Why not make something for it?”

“Englishman,” said the herald wistfully, despite all his vulnerability. He met Robert’s eye headlong, and knowing he could not break the handhold, did not struggle against it. There was a chill conducting from the screen all along his back and settling in numbly against his spine. “Do you not know the difference between given and taken?” _They are not worth the same weight._

When Robert kissed him again he felt the sharp and disapproving edge of the knight’s frustration with him. It raked him bloody. It did not hesitate. _You know the difference keenly._ It slaked its own dry thirst with the wetness from his mouth. _You are no stranger to taking_. Now he strained against the imprisoning grasp, achieving nothing but a stabbing pain in his palm. He squirmed under the man’s pressing weight and went nowhere. _The emptiness of taking. What is given is created into the world. What is taken is annihilated from it._

“Stop,” he murmured through the onslaught, words thickening, slick and slurring, “Or you will forswear yourself. This is sacred vigil you keep. Holy ritual.” His voice, heavy with reverence, arrested Robert for a moment, so he could speak more clearly. “You will bloody your white robe. You spit on the name of your king,” he said sadly. Robert answered with a fierce hushed snarl. “I can loose an arrow every heartbeat, herald. One every candle second. And every one flies true. How many do you think I shot for Henry in the space of an afternoon?” The fingers of his right hand intertwining with the herald’s tightened painfully, like a set of screws twisting closed, but it was his left, stealing downwards, teasing past the hem of his tabard that made Montjoy’s breath catch. “I shot my fingers and wrists bloody. Just like yours. In pursuit of duty. I shot my arms and back trembling. And when I reached down and there were no more arrows I picked up a hatchet and charged.” His snarl was pulling up at the edges into a smile that was no less terrifying.

_Hundreds, for Henry._

Montjoy found a wordless moan escaping, and gritted his teeth against it, unsuccessfully. The Englishman’s touch as he thrust past the drawstring at the waist to grip him skin to skin was not gentle, but it was certain. “The king does not need my pining pious vigil,” Robert said, stroking him. His fingertips were dry and his palm weathered and callused. It was unbearably clear. Over the sound of his own ragged panting, threads shifting as heavy fabric bunched and slid, the herald barely heard him. “He has my arm. My eye.” He was certain Robert was taunting him now. Teasing him with a grip now firm, now feathery. “My hand.” _He was._ “Stop,” he gasped, angry, and when the Englishman leant forward again he bit down on Robert’s lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Unfazed, the knight pressed harder, relishing the taste that spread languorously through both their mouths, and faltering, the herald let him.

“I do not care for denial,” Robert laughed cheerfully, running his tongue over the cut, spreading the vivid scarlet stain. In a close world of stark stone, iron and wood, it was the only spill of color, and the very essence of it. Montjoy closed his eyes and still he saw it outlining a wide and wicked grin. “When I have your true nature,” said the Englishman, “Here in the palm of my hand.” The resistance straining away at his right hand was waning with every word, desperately flagging. “I could be blind and deaf, and still I know you.” In his left, “Hot and hard and wanting.” _Right through a hundred burning little pains, shedding their skins, baring their awful sins._ “Deny it to me now. Deny everything if you can.”

Montjoy shook his head, turning his cheek to the cool iron, wishing it were branding him if only for the brutal diversion it would mean. “Have mercy,” he pleaded, despairing, but when he opened his eyes and met the knight’s steady gaze he knew it was in vain, and he offered up his defiance with a tremulous sigh. “Still I know you,” Robert said. As he released both hands, the herald sank weakly to his knees. “And why you came.”

 _You don’t know._ He cradled Montjoy’s head to his groin, and through the thin separation of the loose white robe the herald could count time by the heated throbbing beat. Two seconds, three. _Enough._ He looked up, past the broad shoulders, past the knowing raider’s grin, and into the shadow of the soaring arch overhead. “ _Assez_ ,” he murmured, lingering over the syllables, “ _Je donnerai_ —” Robert did not understand their meaning, but the spirit committed was plain. He answered in his fervent greedy smile.

 _You don’t know how they made my little brother kill himself._ The herald left the sentence hanging, wetly open, and accepted Robert’s imperative as the Englishman hitched up his robe and thrust into his mouth with a hissed and stuttering groan. “Ah,” Robert’s breath whispered out, past a jaw clenched against any sudden imprecation, sharp above the soft liquid sounds. “That’s good.”

 _How they made him come to their cells at night. How they taught him on his knees a new and desecrating prayer, undoing the soul._ He shuddered violently, and would have backed away, except there was a cold iron screen at his back, and two broad hands curled in his hair, holding him in place. Robert’s robe smelt like incense, and his flesh, freshly bathed, like lavender and oil, pressing into the blackly rising visions, mixing with their insubstantial horror.

 _How they used him, and passed him around._ At first luxuriating in the slow, deliberate rhythm, as his blood boiled and his breath came whistling, the knight wrapped his hand around one of the screen’s close twisted bars and pulled himself in. Faster, as he demanded, accelerating, to the beat of his heart. He pressed his mouth to the back of his hand and bit down hard to silence himself as he came with a sudden jolt, like a tall tree shedding its last leaves in a single brutal gust.

 _I don’t know how, yet I can see it so clearly._ As he pulled out Montjoy coughed, enervated, spilling a wet dribble from his lips. Tenderly, the Englishman knelt and wiped it away with his fingertips, but when he leant in for a kiss he was surprised by the herald’s hand, once more pressed against his shoulder, once again resisting. “I much prefer your clever tongue this way,” he teased, allowing the gentle pressure to hold him at bay. “Tell me why you think I came,” Montjoy said, numbly, when he could speak again. Robert raised his eyebrows, and waved an arm in the altar’s general direction. “For the same reason I donned this ridiculous robe. The same reason I’ve knelt alone all day.” He took the herald’s hand and held it to his lips solemnly. “To be cherished. To be valued in some meaningful way.” With a grim smile the herald raised his head. “No,” he laughed without sound, blue eyes gray in the flickering shadow, “No, that’s not it.”

*

William returned to find the French herald deeply engrossed in the book he had left behind, sitting sideways in some august churchman’s seat as nonchalantly as if it was a cushioned window cranny. “Learn anything?” he remarked dryly, nodding to the volume. In his flourishing hand it recorded all the names and dates and devices of any notable knight of England, and would be symbolically supplemented in the morning with seven more names, sealing their elevation to the lofty brotherhood. Montjoy raised his head and made a mysterious smile, unreasonably suggestive of some distant sadness to the Englishman.

“Nothing I did not already know,” he said, closing the tome and offering it. William waved it away as he brandished his own burden. “The Bishop’s secret stash,” he said merrily, and handed a beaten silver goblet to the bemused herald. “To think I held you a pious man, William.” They raised their cups and touched the rims together, a pair of primly sedate revelers, one cheerful and one grave. Montjoy watched as William drained his in a single long swallow. The wine was dark and unwatered, heavy in hue and flavor, befitting a Bishop’s table. It seared his cut lip and aching throat. “It is hardly communion wine,” Guyenne shot back, pouring himself another cupful as he collapsed into his own wooden bay.

“Anyone fallen asleep yet?”  
“Not that I know of.”  
“Ah, these Agincourt knights,” William sighed. “Half too deferential, the other half too crudely belligerent.”  
“Because they are common?” The Englishman held one finger to his lips with a mocking, scandalized expression. “I hear you offered Robert some advice.”

“Oh yes, your earnest executioner from the wild northern Avon.” His laugh was soft but nonetheless tinged with the wildness of strong wine. It was clear it was not his first glass, and Montjoy felt the beginnings of the same bold heat blunt his mind. “I hope you did not cause him to break his vow of silence while I was gone,” William said, grinning and winking. “What is his interest, I wonder? This spectacle of a herald dumb enough to stand up for execution? A rare unicorn is sighted—gracing us with its purifying presence, putting us all to shame.” Montjoy snorted derisively, emptying his cup, and like a gracious host William filled it up again.

“You owe him a life.”  
“And I repay my debts,” remarked the herald, leaning back, his demeanor causing William to groan.  
“I see my advice was sorely needed, yet too late. What did you pay?”  
“A design.”

“Oh!” Struck by realization, the Englishman made to clap his hands together, nearly spilling the contents of his goblet. “ _Now_ I understand the queer thing. _Semé de pheon. Argent_ and _sanguine._ ” He frowned as he considered the device Robert had described. “A poor design. I should disallow it.” More curious than dissenting, the herald made an interrogative gesture, and William chastised him with prickly dignity. “A knight is not an archer, Montjoy King of Arms,” he said. “The day was carried by archers,” replied the Frenchman, aching, and untethered, his gaze drifted away to the murky unsounded depths of his cup, “And all the great knights fell before them. Why should he not bear his deadly prowess proudly?” As William straightened up to argue the point, he shook his head wearily. “No, please forget it. You may tell him he should not bear the arrowheads. You may even convince him why. It is none of my concern.”

“Very well, I will spare you, my friend. You do not have the look of a man with few concerns.” His raised eyebrow drew out a sincere laugh, rich though dry, like a drought year vintage, cracking all along its hidden underside. “Spare me? Dear God no. Try me. Tell me the ransom to be set for my Lord Duke of Orleans,” Montjoy said lightly, almost as a jest, little expecting the answer that descended with the crushing weight of a millstone judgment. “Two hundred and fifty thousand golden crowns,” Guyenne replied, a bright glint in his eye. “ _Christ on his Cross—_ ” Instinctively as he uttered the blasphemy Montjoy made an apologetic gesture westwards to the altar. _You turn a golden key on his fate. This is no ransom but a prison sentence._ “You damned _English_ —How many sons of House Orleans must you have?” he asked miserably, setting down his cup to paw at his face, trying to make sense of things. “The full set would be preferable.” Guyenne’s bloodless chuckle sought for his raw nerves with a merciless flaying knife, but it was his next comment that struck the mark. “Brothers should be glad to be together, should they not?”

“We have not yet paid for the _youngest_ , William.”  
“Should that be Henry’s concern? Should the eldest go for less than the youngest?”

“Are you English made of _stone_?” Anger flaring, he shot to his feet crying, “Hen—” and was instantly stricken silent. Once out of the shadow of the deep wooden bay and exposed to the harsh slender beams of moonlight coming down the centermost channel, sieving through delicate Gothic tracery and musty hanging air without losing a mote of pale incandescence, he knew without seeing. He stood in the clear open space between shrine and altar, and without a shred of evidence, felt certain.  

_Speak of the devil._

“Montjoy?” William queried, his face now hidden by the panel of his seat.  
“Your Majesty,” said the herald quietly, his hand moving to his heart, and his eyes travelling along the shadows of the wide choir entrance, where at the sound of his even voice one detached sinuously and stalked up into illumination with a languid smile. 

_Horns and tail. It shows itself._

“If we are to be made of stone, then I must be a church gargoyle,” Henry said. _How long had he been there, leaning against the wooden screen with his eyes closed and his arms folded? Silent as the moonlight, and listening._ “But is it fire or water that I spit from my mouth?”

“A fearsome one either way, my liege,” said his herald, springing to his feet. There was no trace of either vessel or drink about his person as he greeted his king with an unconcerned grin. “How many heralds does it take to watch over my vigilant knights?” Henry asked equally lightly, scrutinizing Guyenne’s face, then Montjoy’s. His nose twitched, and his eyes gleamed, scorching across the smooth surface of their composure. _Fire-breathing_ , Montjoy thought for sure, _mythical beast._ Henry wore no crown but a scattering of laurel leaves. A dark travelling cloak was clasped securely around him, shrouding him but for his familiar well-worn gloves and boots, making of him nothing but another nameless reveler until his eyes caught the colorless light and turned to golden prerogative. His sharp smile suggested that they should hang their heads and repent, like truant children fidgeting with their sleeve hems, but the two Kings of Arms breasted his raking regard without a ripple of unease. The Englishman openly guilt-free, seeing no need for remorse; the Frenchman calm and guarded, exhibiting no emotion.

“Seven,” William answered, “one for each.” He shied a step back as Henry advanced on him mock-fiercely. “By your leave, your Majesty,” Montjoy said, trying to excuse himself with a slight bow. “I did not see your horse,” the King pinned him with an accusatory glare. _Water-spouting_ , he thought, _sky-eyed watcher._ “I did not ride,” he said simply.

Henry unclasped his cloak and shed it into the waiting hands of his herald, revealing beneath the full panoply of his feast attire. Struck from the front by flickering candlelight, he wore crimson and emerald and gold, patterned with slender vertical stripes, and thickly embroidered with his coat of arms. By the cool silver moon, his back was stripped of all its vivid hues, in exchange transmuting the metal thread at his throat, his wrists and hems to pure quicksilver, liquid and living, sparkling across night-darkened plains and sky.

 _Fire and water_ , Montjoy reconsidered, _burning and drowning._

“Both of you come with me,” Henry ordered as he strode off into the aisle.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 1


	26. Only by Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give him only what you truly are.

“See how they do me homage.”

Behind high iron screens, they were holding seven silent vigils _. Swords to candles._ One in each transept arm, two by the choir walls, north and south, and three in moonlit chancel chapels. They knelt before their single candles, and sheltered its still flame with cupped hands. Their fierce faces roughened by shadow. Their simple gowns pearlescent in the moonlight, bloodied at the hems.

“Speak no ill of my Agincourt knights, for they have shed their blood with me, and are as my brothers.”

To Henry’s quiet reproach William was wearing a faint and faded grin that struck Montjoy as absurd. Behind Henry’s back, he shot the Englishman a reproving glance, and Guyenne rolled his eyes up to the cathedral ceiling, languidly unrepentant. _You, who are wearing the laurel in your hair. How do you mock the sincerity of your young king?_

‘Civil war. Treason. Betrayal.’ The English herald made three quick signs in the silent figurative language, then swept his hand through the air, as if to cast them away. ‘How empty is a ceremony such as this one?’ Montjoy shook his head, unable to answer the beckoning palm, so William sneered at him with good-natured contempt. _And yet. Yet._ In the soft soundless twilight, Henry’s back seemed so open and unguarded, vulnerable enough to fill him with irrational fear. _After all the slaughter and betrayal, he does not surrender his ideals._ _How do you not fall to your knees before him?_

*

“John of Asheton,” said Henry, extending his arms towards the young man. The first knight-appellant would have broken his vow at the sound of Henry’s voice, his eyes snapping open, near panic, mouth opening in surprise, but looming to Henry’s right, William made a sharp warning signal over the king’s shoulder, stifling the exclamation. Henry pretended not to notice.

_Tomorrow, in the bright and riotous light of dawn, the swearing-in will glorify you and your kind, Knight of England. But it is tonight that truly matters._

“Pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_Only tonight. Only by moonlight, you may kiss the king and give him everything you are._

The young Englishman clasped Henry’s arms and rose up from his knees faintly to place his lips on his sovereign’s. Rapturous like a Saint in ecstasy, barely breathing, he had his eyes closed but his eyelids fluttered as if dreaming. Montjoy exchanged a glance with William, whose indifferent expression had sublimated into something more vaporous and unreadable. _Meanwhile we heralds witness._

“Thomas Metham.” Henry had two witnesses for his covenants, one English, one French, and both were heralds of their thrones. They were not inexperienced to the proceedings. They had seen it all before, in many different forms.

But there was something in the strange midnight hour. There beneath the shadowed stone canopy, there was something falling from the slender arches, something in the thick heady wine, that made even William still and solemn, despite all of his jaded disillusion. Despite all of his preoccupations, Montjoy felt it touch him, and searched in vain for its source as he watched Henry administer the ritual.  

“With this kiss, pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_The manner of the king. The way he takes their hands. The way he bends over them, and raises them._

“Richard of Sandford.” The chapel of St. George had an image of the patron saint in prayer, kneeling on the scarlet coils of his defeated wyrm. Over his golden armor, the legendary knight wore a cross of white and red—an eternal reminder to those aspirants clothed in his colors what they were to be. At the entrance of the king, the single candle flame flickered, and the serpent seemed to writhe in pain.

“Pledge your honor to me. With this kiss, pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_The way he takes possession. Do you Englishmen know what you give with your chaste and touching kiss? What you should give?_

“John Hevenynham.” Her Lady’s Chapel, directly beneath the eastern rose, was the great cathedral’s most lovingly decorated. Flooded by moonlight, it was a silver sanctuary, a sliver of His kingdom watched over by a pair of soft painted eyes, full of unconditional forgiveness. This kneeling knight burned his candle in a cup of gold, not silver, and he regarded Henry with a smile no less brilliant than the king’s.

“With this vigil, pledge your honor to me. With this kiss, pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_Remember chivalry, when you are burning our fields and storming our cities._

“James Haryngton.” Montjoy only noticed his attention waning, his eyes closing without warning, when William nudged him surreptitiously, snapping him awake. The Englishman held up two fingers. His frowning scrutiny was waved away without comment.

Compared to its eminent neighbors, the southernmost chapel was plain, nearly bare. St. Dunstan, proclaimed the engraving, but the French herald could not place his name, nor the painted scene behind the altar. The man kneeling before it was a similar unknown, his features blurring in and out of focus. In the vaguely fading gloom, the only definitive truth was the voice of the king, delivering a command and a promise.

“I cherish you. With this vigil, pledge your honor to me. With this kiss, pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_Meanwhile we heralds will remember your name, when you take, or when you are taken._

“Stephen Maureward.” They had walked the pilgrim’s path, all around the choir, without visiting St. Erkenwald’s shrine. Henry offered, not to any sanctified bones, but to the living men who had shed their blood for him, and each time, he came away with the touch of their devotion. With every knight pledged he seemed to burn brighter. In the choking grey gloom he could walk by light of his own illumination.

_Here in God’s greatest English House, we are holding a ritual so ancient and pagan. Wine can be blood. Bread can be flesh. Still we are wild forest folk, sharing souls with a kiss._

“My brother in arms, I cherish you. With this vigil, pledge your honor to me. With this kiss, pledge yourself to me,” said Henry.

_Except I did not come from green hill and great forest. I come from lake and meadow, and do not belong._

“Robert of Upavon.” _Look at you. You understand what it means to be his bow and sword._ Robert’s gaze flicked over Henry’s shoulder, to him, and he gave the Englishman a hint of a smile. _Look at how you kiss your king. How tentative. How sweet and loyal. My Lord Marshal, record one more response, for fidélité._ As they separated, Henry put one hand to his mouth, and was confused when his fingertips came away bloody. Blood welling up from his torn lip, the English knight’s only explanation was a loose shrug.

_Except I did not come to pledge. I came to submerge the sharing, only to find it does not drown._

“Let him not part his shield,” said Henry as he retrieved his cloak. He swept it on like a magpie folding its wings, hiding its iridescent plumage.

“My liege?” William feigned mystification, and Montjoy hid a chuckle under a quiet cough.

“Let him bear a whole field. _Semé de pheon_. _Argent_ on _sanguine._ ” Henry nodded to himself, setting his statement into stone, an irrefutable royal edict. “He was one of those who carried the day. Why should he not bear it proudly?”

*

He would have hung back, as William did, at the threshold of the cruciform, but Henry beckoned him on impatiently. Together, they broached the southern portal into the cathedral courtyard, breaths ghosting. The late November breeze lent Montjoy a thimble of wakefulness, with all its attendant usuries. In the morning, he knew he would pay a head slow and stupid, heavy with dulled senses. The streetside stables had a page and a yawning stablehand waiting in earnest. At first sight of their king, the young page in red and gold approached them with a saddled mare in hand.

“Thomas,” Henry said, taking the reins, “Are you prepared?”  
“Yes, your majesty.”  
“Well-said. Go on. And tell William to return the Bishop what is his.”

They watched the small figure struggle with the towering cathedral door, with all of his small might cracking open a narrow space through which he disappeared. Across the newly empty courtyard, a host of gothic spires cast the shadow of their thin grasping thoughts onto the flat expanse, reaching towards a horizon where their tips might eventually join.

“William d’Guyenne will give him a sip of wine, and he will sleep till sunrise,” Montjoy said distantly.  
“Think you so poorly of my men? That they cannot keep a simple vigil for me?”  
“I think they are the most fearsome thing I have ever seen,” he replied without blinking.  
“Ride with me,” Henry said, grinning at the herald’s ensuing frown. He extended his free hand.  
“How can I? _Your majesty?_ ” Montjoy did not suppress a note of incredulity.  
“What will set your mind at ease? My command? My request?” Henry’s grin fed on his reluctance and grew slanted and impish. “Or my stubbornness? We will stand here all night like fools if you wish.”

_Where are those hundred ballads holding foolishness? Holding madness? I have not read your book, Lord Marshal, but I have a response ready._

He looked around the moonlit streets, flush with the refuse of the day’s excesses. Here before him, was the object of that frantic revelry. Here was the lead in the pantomime. Here was the whining carol’s beat. And he was smiling so honestly. With his hand out-stretched, uncompromising.

The choir had sung a high sweet hymn. The crowd had butchered the melody in an abattoir of screeching. Still they thought they made an infinitely pleasing music. _Lord, how it must please you._ Still they sang on like the deaf and dying. _Like our screams. Like our dying wishes._ He looked around and ached as empty as the silent streets.

“How can the King stand around all night?” he whispered, taking Henry’s hand.   

The mare picked up her feet as Henry flicked the reins. Her rider was in no hurry, and she had a fine even gait, clicking down the pavement stones as deliberately as a duchess pricking a silk stole with a long embroidery needle.

“How do you feel?” Montjoy started as Henry wrapped an arm around his waist and took his hand. The question materialized by his ear, and at first the English slipped past him, untranslatable. Indecipherable, to his mind, like tongues. Like whispered madness. “Fine,” he said finally, turning away, disconcerted and shifting, breaths coming sharply.

“Tell me the truth,” Henry said. He lifted the herald’s palm up into the pale moonlight, but the stains were old and dark, revealing nothing. The fingers hung slackly, cool to the touch, and unresisting as he wrapped them up in his. “Fine. Tired,” Montjoy said. He seemed to sag a little with the admission, as if the affliction had come to the sound of its name like an obedient hound.

“The truth,” Henry whispered, lips to his ear.  
“What I am is uncertain. Full of fear.” _The truth.  
_ “What have you to fear, here with me?”

“What, under all of the sky?” With their clasped hands, Henry pointed up to the sparkling stars, and answered himself with certainty. “Nothing.”

 _Nothing but our fate, in constellation. In ascendancy, the sinuous entwining fish. Always in a pair, the heralds of Aphrodite as she came from the sea, giving us new meaning and new miseries._ For all their distance, they shone brightly, in their many thousands. A fleeting tremor passed through his hand as the herald stretched his fingers open and closed and open again.

“Why do you choose to misunderstand?” Montjoy asked softly, shaking off his grip.  
“What do I choose?”  
“Nothing, I—”

He pressed his lips together tightly, and refused to continue. In the ensuing silence, the mare huffed in time with her muted hoofbeats as they left behind the city walls. Henry had taken Newgate instead of Ludgate, and the street turned from stone to beaten earth, pitted down the center with the marks of many iron-shod hooves.

“What is it you think you cannot tell me, here on the back of my horse?”

Up the street they wound, past the close-packed townhouses, two-storied and brooding now that the darkness hid their colorful bunting. Only one in five still had a lit window. Some shed light from the hearth, as servants gathered in their masters’ absence and released the occasional boisterous cry, hurriedly hushed. Some bright shutters showed a single candle, burning up some child’s terrors, or three in a tined holder, where a hardworking man read or wrote or prayed late into the night.

“Here in my arms.” The king held him closely, as if he would pitch himself out of the saddle. _Not too far to fall_ , Montjoy considered the dirt road over the side, and grimly held onto his silence _._

“Tell me,” Henry murmured.  
“What shall I tell your majesty?” He made his voice light, with difficulty.

_Once upon a time, a young prince on a long journey asked me to tell him a story._

The amused sound Henry made suggested the question delighted him. “Tell me what you think of me.”

_I told him a parable of fox and wolf—how Reynard once defeated Ysengrim in a duel._

“Then for sooth that knight comely,  
In Agincourt field he fought manly.”

In a clear and taunting tenor, Montjoy sang just two lines from the freshly minted carol, and felt Henry wince from the embarrassment of it. “My dear brother,” Henry grimaced, “Against my expressed order he pens such a song, and already it is being used to mock me. How devilishly clever of him.”

“What man in Christendom shall dare to mock thee?” asked the herald. His voice was soft and even, colored like a lazy afternoon sky, as immeasurably distant.  
“Dare you not, herald?” Henry chuckled. “Subtler than your master, perhaps, yet I am not fooled.”  
“Art thou fooled by the Marshal’s scorn? He is not yet done with his insults. He has not yet achieved his purpose.”  
“What purpose?” asked Henry lightly, unconcerned. “To tilt against my brothers? One or the other?” He brushed the darkened stains at the hem of the herald’s tabard. “He will lose.”  
“He will try. He will throw away his life to try.”  
“What is his life to you?” With a dark grin Henry leant over Montjoy’s shoulder to catch his eye. “Will you play the same gambit with me as you used on my honest Robert?”

_How does a fox best a wolf in battle? He tricked Ysengrim into boasting, and while he was droning on and on, gripped him by the balls._

They had passed the crossroads, veering south and west, and across the moonlit fields he could make out the palace, splendidly lit, rivalling the pale luminescent sky with its amber and orange blaze.

“Will it work?” he asked, a heartbeat later.

_The young prince thought Reynard had acted without honor, and so he had. But that was not the moral of the story._

Henry laughed, loudly and unrestrained. In the still night, the sound carried, muting all the other small noises as the crickets and nightjars and scurrying mice looked around and cocked their heads perturbed.

“Your great lords fought, and lost,” Henry said. “They wagered their lives, now they forfeit them. They do not deserve your desperation.”  
“I cannot say what they deserve. I only have what I have to give.” _What can I contribute to a world in turmoil? Nothing but a few words. A few drops of blood in a torrent._ “And it is close as can be to nothing,” he said under his breath.  
“Give it to me,” said Henry. Montjoy heard the broad hungry smile, the teeth bared in a grin. “I do not think it is nothing.”  
“Not even for two hundred thousand crowns, great king,” he said. He did not tremble, but he bore the tension’s strain. One at a time, greatly concentrating, he straightened his fingers and held them open. Henry sighed quietly.

“Have you fallen for William’s trick? It is nothing more than a figure out of his imagination.”  
“Oh? And the reality?”  
“No ransom,” said Henry.  
“This—”  
“No ransom,” he repeated, remorseless. “Not even two hundred thousand pounds.”

_You cannot fight the wolf by strength alone. You do not challenge the fox to a contest of wits._

Henry had navigated to the palace’s smallest entrance, intended only for the use of the gardeners and guardsmen. As he reined in the mare beside the inconspicuous gate, Montjoy seized the opportunity to slip under his arm and off the mare’s round back. Landing on his feet knocked the air from his lungs, and gasping, he watched as the gate opened instantly to Henry’ s knock, revealing a waiting page, with whom he exchanged the reins for a shaded lantern.

_You cannot win the engagement until you know if you play the fox or the wolf. Or, being neither, you consign yourself to defeat._

“No more talk of ransoms. Come with me,” said Henry, for the third time, raising the light in one hand, and offering the other without reservation. He had abandoned his reverence by the cathedral threshold. His face illuminated in slivers and stripes of shadow was openly inviting. “Come on,” he said, promising all of his good intentions with a sweet smile.

*

 _I remember a hot summer night, moonlit and cloud free._ The sky was not black but murky brown, oppressive and heavy. Even in the darkness there was no respite from the exhausting heat. In the clinging humidity, we were already sticky with sweat as we crouched by our bedroom door, waiting for the footsteps of the retreating servant to fade.

“Come on,” I said, taking Philippe’s hand. He was breathless with the novelty of breaking the rules, especially with our father home at last, but he was no less eager. We feared the old man’s anger, but brave and heady on confidence, we knew we would not be caught.

The manor did not have hidden passages like some greater houses, for servants and thieves alike to pass unnoticed, so we had to go brazenly by the main hallways. But it was a short course to the stables. _Down the stairs, out the side door, skirt the garden’s edge, watch out for the crunching gravel._ We had charted it out. There was only the night watcher, wandering the courtyard, and the cook in the kitchens, who liked to stay up late with a cup. They would not catch us, we were sure of it.

“Hush,” I said, unnecessarily, because Philippe had not made a sound, as I pushed the door open and peeked through the crack. The way was clear; the only candlelight to reveal our sneaking passage streaming out from under the master bedroom door. _We had to know. And we would, by checking his mount._ If bridle and saddle were hanging by, and her mane was brushed and plaited, then he would leave the next day. If they were outside by the trough, awaiting cleaning, then he would stay at least three. And if they were gone, to be mended, or replaced entirely, and her iron shoes were off, or her coat oiled, then it was a week or more before he could set off again.

The old man may be as reticent as he wished, but he should not underestimate the ingenuity of his own sons. I smiled, receiving Philippe’s answering grin in high spirits. We slipped out into the corridor, bare feet silent on the carpet. As we tiptoed past the lit doorway, Philippe dragged me back with an insistent tug. While I had been concentrating on the distant stair, he had heard something irresistible.

The unmistakable sound of our mother’s voice, speaking her native language. Round and smooth and entirely incomprehensible, she was speaking softly, but fast, like the hoofbeats of a galloping horse, and we knew she was angry. She was raging, as we had never known her to, in a venomous tone we had never heard before. Philippe turned to me. His expression was questioning, but I shook my head. The foreign sounds were no more familiar to me. I recognized a word, perhaps. _Woman_. _She?_ It was repeated several times by our mother, peppering a long tirade, and then our father said her name in his calm, rational way. “Joanna.” If he had meant to reassure her, it had no effect. She scoffed loudly, and said something laced with bitter contempt.

In a moment of divine premonition, I knew we could not be there. Not I, and especially not Philippe. Urgently, I pulled his hand, but he dug his feet in, stubborn as ever, seeking any kind of understanding. “You can be so unreasonable.” We heard the old man sigh, but he too was angry. He was pacing, still in his heavy boots by the sound of it. I could see him, traveling cloak discarded over an empty chair, in a dark brown tunic and undyed hose, road-stained and worn at the hems, staring angrily into the fire. I could see her, sitting at the foot of the bed, dressed for sleep in a light linen gown, barefoot as we were, long dark hair cascading down her shoulders in gentle waves.

Desperate to convince Philippe, I drew back from the door. He did not follow. He might have been a year younger, but he was as tall as my shoulder, and fiercely independent. He pressed both hands and one ear to the cool wood, trying to discern more of the situation. He might have been as tall as my shoulder, but he did not have my intuition.

We heard our mother retort scornfully, and the swift sound of his footsteps as the old man crossed the room. Then, the sudden crystalline crack of a hard backhand, causing Philippe to stumble backwards in shock. _Enough._ He fought back as I dragged him away, but any sounds we made passed unnoticed in the noise coming from within, as they had their own adult struggle in earnest, their own wordless muted agony. He only relented once I had closed our bedroom door behind us, sinking moodily to the floor.

“Why?” he whispered, holding his head at the angle that prevented the escape of welling tears.  
“I don’t know.” I looked in the direction of their room, as if some sound would then come through the intervening walls, and explain everything.  
“We’ll find out, right?” he asked, shoving one hand out grimly. He had always been enamored of pacts and covenants, like in all the stories of the great knights.  
“We will,” I said, taking his hand, and thinking the exact opposite.

In the end, the old man left the next day, and as her revenge, my mother taught me a song without teaching the meaning of it. Years later I understood why. My brother would have sang it to the old man’s face, but I never did.

*

 _Had something crossed his face?_ Henry’s steady hand wavered for a split second, his eyes growing sharper, sensitive and seeing something. _Some shadow?_ Before he could speak, and in defiance of it, the herald raised his hand for the king’s. Just in time, he caught himself, startled by his own action. When Henry reached out and took the hand that had frozen in midair, he did not resist.

They went together, like thieves through a pirate stronghold, silently through the servant byways with unsettling speed and familiarity. He soon lost track of where they were. In the close cobwebbed gloom he panted and stumbled and hung onto Henry’s hand like the end of Ariadne’s golden thread.

 _This unrelenting pace is no coincidence,_ thought the herald, as Henry supported him into a spacious set of rooms, and deposited him onto the edge of the canopied bed. _It confuses. It tires and weakens, burning up resistance._ The fire had been banked, the room pleasantly warm. The candles in their standing sconces were dribbling and half-spent. There was a fresh floral bundle over the mantel, and the distinct scents of lavender, and rosemary and pervasive laurel rode the rising smoke to descend with a hint of charring.

_In this lavish arena, we are playing Christians and Lions. The loser will forfeit his heart for consumption._

When Henry appeared from the adjoining room with a roll of bandages in hand, Montjoy held up a warding hand. “This—I do not—” Through a distracting ache in his head he tried to focus on the king. Behind Henry the walls were blurred, candlelight jumping, and between every blink the painted leaves curled and changed their shape. A surge of nausea, and Henry’s firm grasp on one shoulder, made it impossible to stand. 

“You have not seen the physician,” Henry said, taking one look past his stained collar.  
“I saw him this morning.” A pinprick of silver in the blinding golden glare of dawn. A sardonic voice, raising the dead. “And he said come again tomorrow.”  
“This will not wait for tomorrow.”  
“Then I will go now.”  
“It is too late to wake the old man. You will simply have to make do with me.”

With one hand, Henry took hold of his tabard, and with the other, thwarted his bleary attempts to keep ahold of it. In bad grace, he relinquished it, after a short, futile struggle. “This is no task fit for your majesty,” he said, frustrated. “Or does the English court employ no servants but knights?”

“We employ stablehands as well,” Henry said archly, “Yet there you are, King of Arms, brushing down your horse in the late evening frost.”

“I like to take care of her,” the herald said, slowly forming a logical connection that made him raise his eyes to meet Henry’s. _I need to._ Henry was faintly grinning. Disconcerted, he looked away as Henry stripped off his shirt as well, exposing two layers of stained bandages. “Like a dumb horse,” murmured the herald, setting his gaze over Henry’s shoulder as the king wielded a knife on the knotted ends of the sling. His right arm came free with a hot tearing pain at the shoulder, and he gritted his teeth against a sudden cry. “Like a wounded hound,” he said, disgusted. _Fit for putting down._

“Like a little lost lamb,” Henry said sympathetically, running his fingers through Montjoy’s hair as if checking an animal’s coat, teasing it up into wilting tendrils. The herald pushed his hand away, irritated; insulted as Henry chuckled, his pity unsolicited. The second layer of linen strips did not fall away as easily. Where there was mottled skin, they snarled and molted in a great mass. Where there were seeping stitches, they stuck fast, adhered by blood and ointment. Strip by strip had to be pulled free, with a sickening sound, and a soft keening whine he bit back on roughly.

_The Lions prowl, and the Christians join hands and bow their heads. Praise His name._

“Do I merit thy insult?” he said through clenched teeth. “Despite what you may think, I am not lost. I am not a lamb for the slaughter.” He turned his back to Henry, and as his breath scratched in and out the vicious lines wept a clear viscous slurry. The stitches bent and stretched and the flesh seemed to speak. It was a red-lined tongueless scream.

“Did I insult thee, herald?” Henry traced a swelling gash from neck to waist with his fingertips. The skin rose up jagged and broken, embossed through the pale parchment-like skin, tallying one measure of retribution. But for a fleeting shudder passing under and through the bare flesh, there was no response to his touch as he brushed by each one of ten. “When all you have to show for your service are these?” Ten weeping, crisscrossing in a tangle of offhand brutality. _When you accuse with your fine unflinching gaze, little wonder they lose their composure so readily._ He reached around to peel the wrappings off the herald’s arms and wrists. “How many miles did they run you over the ground?”  

“I don’t know,” he whispered, sloughing off the linen like old skin, an unwanted burden. In the same way, the memory could fall off him, and take nothing with it. “But my horse is strong and fast.” He made a small smile, devoid of feeling. “How far can she run in five minutes? Three miles?” _Less, for she came to a stop as soon as they had stopped whipping her on. She was smart, and knew his voice, though it was breathless and cracking._

“What is it that takes on its abuses without complaint?” Henry asked, shaking his head.

“Some kind of fool,” Montjoy said with a laugh. He heard John’s voice clearly, and saw his mentor’s resigned expression again. “Without complaint is not without choice. You would not blink an eye to give a man-at-arms fifteen lashes for stepping off the line. If I have invited my own, at least it was by my choice. I do not regret it. I would do it again.”

“Montjoy.” Henry wrapped his arms around the herald gently. “Come with me. How can I protect you otherwise?”

They were both covered in his blood. Both sticky, suffused with the suffocating scent of earth and iron. They both hesitated, bleeding emotions into the silence as if making an oath in the oldest way, by mingling blood, a wordless promise from palm to cut palm.

_The Lions roar, and the Christians sing a hymn. Sing unto Him. Kýrie, eléison._

*

Humphrey rapped sharply on the door. This was the fourth room he was checking and he was fresh out of patience. No one could tell him what he needed to know. He was no stranger to Henry’s clandestine movements, but it did not prevent him from resenting the inconvenience. When his brother answered the knock, he released a peevish sigh of relief. “Henry, about tomor—” He caught sight of Henry’s bloody shirt and gasped involuntarily. “What—?”

“Cleaning up after John,” Henry said lightly. “As usual.” It had an igniting effect on the Duke of Gloucester, who cursed under his breath.  
“My God, is this a fever madness? A poison?”  
“Are you looking for me, brother?” Henry disregarded his agitation. “Or do you seek to tender your apology?”  
“Oh yes, that I do,” Humphrey snarled softly, “Let me through.”

Henry inclined his head as he stepped to one side, giving way with an obliging flourish. Humphrey eyed him suspiciously as he stalked past, but Henry’s expression was serene.

He found the herald perched on the edge of the bed, head bowed and corpse-still, except for the ragged rise and fall of every breath. He held his right arm tightly to his chest, and supported it with his left. He listed to one side, favoring the shoulder with an ugly stitched-up gash. His bare skin bore the marks of last night in many sickening reds and greens and browns. At the sound of angry footsteps, his eyes flicked open. At the sight of the Duke, he climbed to his feet and made a clipped, unsteady bow.

Humphrey felt an uncontrollable rush of anger flood his gut, clenching his hands into fists. Two pairs of eyes flickered over him as he stepped forward. Their tingling regard was attentive, yet unresponsive. Henry was leaning casually in the doorway, arms folded. His nonchalance was incredibly grating. A challenge, if he knew his brother at all. An open invitation to reveal his intentions; his naïve soul, for sibling ridicule. The herald met his anger with nothing more than muted resignation. Like a traveler by a fogged window, he was simply waiting, patiently and tiredly, for the rain to pass. 

Somehow, he was the intruder. That much was clear. Somehow in a room with his own brother, and his foreign enemy, half-clothed and bloodied, he was the conspicuous one. The king was watchful, the herald was passive, like hunters and trappers, and he was the wild beast, barging so rudely into a human demesne. Unnerved, he hesitated, resisting an urge to lash out.

“Montjoy King of Arms,” he intoned, “I owe you an apology.” He offered his gloved hand to the herald. Montjoy hesitated, patently surprised. A lightning glance leapt to Henry, then back to him, searching his expression. Through the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of Henry’s smile. Finally, the herald reached out, using only his fingertips, and then, only tentatively, as if reaching for a flame, wary of the burn. He bowed, solemnly brushing his lips to Humphrey’s palm. His murmured gratitude was quiet but sincere.  

“Do not mistake me,” he continued, pinning Henry with his glare. “This is no sanction nor clemency.” Eyes narrowing, he advanced on the herald. “Your attitude offends. Your very presence is a personal insult.”  
“If I may offer some amends, I shall,” Montjoy said reasonably. He gave no ground as the distance between them closed.  
“You wish to make amends?” Humphrey knelt and caught up the tabard from the ground in one swift movement. “Never show your face in England again.” He thrust it into the herald’s arms.  
“Shall I fear thee otherwise?” A note of challenge had entered Montjoy’s voice, lining it with a stiff iron frame.  
“Fear me regardless, _Frenchman._ ”

He made an impatient gesture and was shocked when the herald gave him a soft bitter smile.

“Thus claimest thou the throne of France?” Montjoy’s gaze had slipped past him to fix on Henry. “With fire and fear?” Humphrey shoved him back against the wall, hard enough to make him gasp.

“Who are you to be so righteous?” He snarled. The way he had been simply looked past was as hotly searing as a brand upon his cheek. “A whipped and bloodied hypocrite? Who gave you those stripes and holes but your own masters, you stupid French dog. Who bears the stink of treachery? If not you, then them. Master and hound alike, full of disgrace.” He laughed with a sharp, cruel edge. “You dare speak as our betters? What a fine jest!”

In a whisper, barely louder than the intermittent scratching breath, the herald said, “I earned these telling a bereaved man how his brothers died.” He no longer dared to meet Henry’s eyes. “I told him how their throats were slit. In the mud. On their knees. Their hands tied, like lambs to the slaughter.” He looked up into Humphrey’s eyes, and thought that the young Duke did not seem to understand; could not even comprehend. What little indignation there was in his voice drained out, leaving it pale and lightless. “By common men, at their king’s command. Who bears the stain of it?”

“Dare you speak plainly, herald?” Humphrey hissed.

“Dost thou think honor is a relative measure, _Englishman_?”

“Hold, Humphrey.” Swift and even, Henry’s command lanced over his shoulder, staying his raised hand from descending. “Can’t you see he baits you?”  
“And? Should I simply let him?” He turned to Henry with his outrage and blazed at the sight of his measured indifference. If his brother was proving a point, he could not see it. “How brazen can this Frenchman be in your presence?”  
“What do you say, Montjoy?” Henry sighed, beckoning sharply, a lone adult in a parliament of bickering children, tired of the spectacle.  
“My sincerest apologies,” came an immediate response.  
“I don’t believe this.” Humphrey tore at his hair in frustration. “I can’t believe it.”

Henry came forward to take his brother’s arm and steered him firmly out of the bedroom. “Do you think he has no right to judge us? He is as fine an arbiter as any.” Before the hallway door he paused to give his brother a significant look. “I see how easily he makes a decent man lash out with just a few words. I see how deadly honest he can be.” Unceremoniously he ushered Humphrey out into the corridor. “I forgive you, dear brother,” he said, patting Humphrey’s shoulder with a small smile, salvaging his dignity. “You are too rash for the likes of him. As you are now, in all the ways that matter, you cannot win.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	27. Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And be scarred.

Montjoy was still couched against the far wall when Henry returned. Still hunched and defensive, though the Duke had sulked off after being evicted. Still tense and reactive, holding his arms close and his shoulders stiffly. His tabard hung from his fingers, not fully in hand, yet not quite relinquished. As Henry approached, he turned towards the wall, and laid his cheek against the rough woven covering.

 _Sunflowers only turn to face the sun._ _Mindless and heartless, still they are able to follow their singular truth across the sky._ He leant heavily against his good shoulder and resisted the fierce temptation to close his eyes. Cornered in the richly furnished room, it would only be a kind of surrender. _We have the same mechanical reflex, but by its nature we can only recoil from pain. Hurt and bleeding; flowers of sunlight and suffering._

“He is my brother,” Henry said, “and still you taunt him.” His accusatory tone was also his father’s. Not the lord in exile, but the self-made king, sounding out his shaky seat, specters in every shadow. Simple to recognize, and understand, because the harrowed king had been a straight-forward man, but in Henry’s voice there was something deeper, twisting over.  

In a whisper, the herald offered another apology, one more sincere than the last, and fading fast. _Just one final hour of sunlight._ He was straining for a last energetic resource, with which to survive the long night. _Just one brief moment of illumination._ With which to withstand Henry’s strange expression. He drew a deep breath and held it until his chest ached, but he could not stall out any longer. “I am sorry,” he said, unsettled, as Henry took the tabard from his unresisting hands, and tossed it away.  

“Are you?” Henry frowned, demanding his attention with one hand on his cheek. “How plainly you invited it. You chose to, and regret nothing. Last night _and_ tonight.”

Smiling without conviction, Montjoy nodded freely in answer. “How else shall I defy thy brothers, who are hot wind and wildfire?” he asked. _With what of mine shall I appeal to the flame? It understands sacrifice, I think._ He made a bleak gesture in the air, an offering. “I shall build an altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high.” _It must be voluntary, to take on value. It will be a sweet savor unto the Lord._

“Why should you sacrifice anything to them?” said Henry, who had taken him into his arms, and was holding him closely, without any intention of release. Whose fine, soft shirt was sticking to the seeping seams in his skin. “When I am right here?” Whose cheek was cool to the touch, where his was feverish. _When you need only have called my name?_

He stared over Henry’s shoulder into the turned-over embers of the fireplace and tried his best to swallow the thick blackness crawling up his throat. _How shall I defy thee? With an explanation that does not break the light of day without breaking skin?_

*

_I remember the violent flinch, which came without warning. The whispered whimper, escaping from a dark place. In that moment, skin burning, we were nothing but strangers in fear of each other._

He had torn out of the Englishman’s embrace, in a very real panic. “My dear tutor,” Montjoy coughed out, grimacing as his heart slowed and he found his voice again. _Don’t touch me._ He caught himself before the words escaped. “You startled me,” he said instead. John, leaping out from a concealed door, had thoroughly ambushed him. The thick arms enveloping had made him shiver. The hands reaching under his shirt, whose touch stung like sharp salt water, had made him lash out. “Must you sneak around like this?” he asked sheepishly, “One day you shall be mistaken for a thief.”

Curiously, John was silent, holding his shoulder where he had been struck with a thoughtful expression. It should have been obvious. It was a warning, a clear tell, but he was out of sorts and thus did nothing as John lunged at him. City born and city bred, the Englishman fought like it. He grappled Montjoy to the ground without mercy, pinning him down as he pulled up the back of his shirt. He had felt them, and now revealed them. Long, slender welts, a close, orderly collection, like an ancient counting system. Some raised, an angry red, some faded, puce and purple. “Get off,” Montjoy gasped, throwing him off. He readjusted his clothing in a huff, and stubbornly ignored the grimace that demanded an answer.

“Jacques. Tell me.” He could tell John was trying to be reasonable, even persuasive, but it came out strained and twisted. “Charles made me Montjoy King of Arms,” he said with a defiant smile. “So call me King of Arms, mentor mine, and give me no more orders.” Met with Exeter’s black temper, his humor folded back onto itself, revealing a core so flat and hollow.

“This is _his_ doing.”  
“No, John.”  
“Then tell me.”

 _There are some memories that are locked away, in a well of black water, bitter and deep. They do not drown, but submerged, they sleep._ “I take a title for which I am not ready, and I am well aware of it.” He made a handsign whose meaning was an apology, one specific to their profession; for actions taken by one’s master, for consequences beyond one’s control. It told the opposing herald there was no way for either to salvage the situation. “If my master should take offense, it is his right. It is his prerogative. Am I wrong?”

There was a look on John’s face, rarely seen but immediately identifiable. A fury and a fear, and both settling about his shoulders with immense weight, like the heavy hands of a priest at mass, trying as far as he can, with all of his limited strength, to transform the sinful spirit.

“It should not be like this,” the Englishman said under his breath, an imprecation implied, “Not us. Not our calling. Who is it?”  
“My master, Exeter,” Montjoy said, politely, formally, as if to a stranger. “My concern. Trust me to handle it.”

John clenched his fists in frustration. “Your masters do not own you, _herald_.” He could still read his erstwhile apprentice, despite the carefully practiced expression. He could guess why the recoil had been as violent as it was. He recognized that same stubborn iron shell even as it descended, fiercely protective. It covered a yawning emptiness that would preclude John himself as an intruder. Once it had hunched over a fracturing family, now it clung to a House that showed him no kindness, with the same aching impervious devotion.

“They have no right to do as they please.”  
“So what if they do? Right or no right?”

He had been glad to see John, unreservedly happy, for once, and in an instant a familiar anger flared up again, scorching all the pale air in his lungs. The Englishman was an arrow on a still day, unerring in his observation. “You think I will run?” he seethed, unable to stop the needling pain. The answer that they both knew. “Like Philippe? I am not my brother. I am not my father.” As he spoke, he recognized the surging bitterness, the name of the rage, and forced it back down. “Sorry,” he whispered, hanging his head. The English herald took hold of both his wrists, and pulled up the long sleeves with great deliberation. “What are you looking for?” he sighed. “Don’t you remember how he cut his own throat?”

_Can’t you see the blood on the altar cross? It extinguished the candles._

“You promised.” John was hoarse. Another singular occurrence, like an obverse miracle, witnessed with awe’s opposite.

“I remember,” he agreed. He took his mentor’s hands gently, and patted them. “I promised.” Like a farmer’s, they were broad and weathered, rough to the touch. Like a bravo’s, they were cracked and heavy-knuckled, belying how they could be so kind. “Come what may. I will keep it.” He made a smile that was at least sincere, if a little pale. “Do not worry, old man. Unlike my brothers, I keep my promises.”

_I dare claim to be stronger than them. If this is what strength is. If this is what perseverance is._

“You are the most stubborn, is what you are.” With a heavy sigh, John smacked him over the head, then put his hands on his shoulders, kneading them unhappily. “But not the shrewdest. Now is the time to wisen up. _Idiot_. Now your tabard is azure and gold. Now your word carries weight. Time to learn to be clever, and cunning.”

“You seem to think I am some kind of fool.”

“Some kind?” John gave him a sidelong glance. “Let me tell you what kind. The kind who tries so hard to avoid the mistakes of others, he makes the same ones in reverse. Come. Time to teach you how to sneak around like a thief. If you won’t run, you should at least learn to hide.” _Time to learn how to dictate your own fate._

* 

“My concern,” he said, distantly, defying their closeness. “My calling. Trust me to handle it.”  
“Do you not trust _me_ to make things right?” Henry sounded like a man experiencing betrayal for the first time, and he felt the same excruciating pain of it.

“Some things cannot be banished by fiat.” _I know them well, like weeds in stony ground, growing without bound. Like hydra, multiplying every time it is defied._ “Some men cannot be reasoned with.” _They simply consume. But, they must feed, and thus, they can be starved, or they can be sated and satisfied._ “This is the way the world is.” Quietly, he disentangled from the king, separating shirt from skin. As long as he held Henry’s gaze, held his attention with words, he held him at bay. “Those who are great—”  

_With their hatred and their grievances—‘Hey, herald, your brother killed my brother.’ Cornered in an empty hallway by a Lord who mourns his loss not with sadness but with venomous malice, you realize his men are holding all the exits. ‘How will you pay me back?’ You realize what he wants, and it is not your life. He cannot kill you, king’s herald, but he can take your pride. ‘How will you make this right?’ What you do is make a choice. Eyes open, without blinking. Try your best to keep all that you are. You cannot suffer if you try._

“They will have what they will from the rest of us.”

 _With their utter right—_ ‘ _Come in.’ You are surprised when you answer the summons, and the grinning Lord is naked in bed with his latest mistress. The first time, you are surprised. The next time, you are not. He may be the King’s own brother, but he is as decadent as his sovereign is austere. Unashamed, he whips back the covering to present her lewd curves and they both laugh as you look away. ‘He is just a blushing boy’, she seems to be sympathetic beneath her scorn, but it barely registers. ‘Is it true what they say?’ The Lord advances from the bed prowling. You find that you have retreated as far as you can, but you refuse to run. ‘Your brother asked for it.’ Sly and serpentine, he makes you damn yourself. As you retort, you invite your punishment. As you fight back, you find you now owe him. Playful as a caged tiger, the game makes him hungry._

“So let them have it.” Like conjuring with an old, familiar spell, he was calling forth a thing that was to be. He would spite reality with nothing more than the passive force of his spirit. “They may take as they like and burn as they like.” _Like mindless hunting hounds they froth and howl. Like wildfire, they seed the ground with ashes for the next growth, which will be more verdant than the last, you can only hope._ “In the end, they can take nothing of value.”

A solitary hunter in the twilight of a cold autumn copse, Henry was stalking, soft and crunching underfoot, and he had to lead him away from the truth.

“Even thou, great king.” _You can have nothing of value.  
_ “Is it a sacrifice I demand?” Henry wondered.

He had seen the black-tipped tail of the fox whipping through the brush. Though the trees all around echoed with its yipping cries, he was neither lost nor confused by the profusion of sound.

Montjoy blinked once, and canted his head deferentially, offering a small apologetic smile. “There is only one thing of value,” he said softly, “And it is loyalté.” _At the expense of all else._

“What do you think your brother should have done?” Ruthless, and direct, Henry asked. With the clarion honesty of a hunting horn, he would flush his prey into the open. He would see what it was, lamb or fox or fawn, so it could be hunted.

Abruptly, the herald had stopped breathing, as if he had lost the desire to, petrifying as if hoping stillness could be mistaken for invisibility. _When your king asks how you are, despite all the blood in your mouth, despite all the fire in your throat, you tell him everything is as it should be, and you ask him for his message._

“You would ask me that?” he snapped back with futile ferocity.

_The lamb can be lured with salt, and the fox can be snared or trapped, but the fawn, swift and skittish, must be shot in the heart._

“You stood in front of my own bloodied sword. You stared down my brothers like a pair of errant dogs. Blood is nothing to you. Honor is nothing. What else? What else is to be given up like so much worthless dross? Come on, Montjoy. Do not speak around in riddles, when you can speak so directly.”

He was paling, draining spirit, displaced by a hollow black lining, protected by a suit of fell inverted armor that rejected all living matter through the skin. It protected a pristinely empty interior. “They deserved to die, yet it is my brother who faces hellfire and damnation.” He could not raise his voice above a whisper. “His single soul is worth more than a hundred of them.”

_This is not your king. This is your bloodied enemy, who dares to promise a conquering entire. Who dares to let his crown fall amongst stable rushes. Savage, and gentle, this is the strange manner of your failing._

“Do not ever ask what you are asking,” he said, voice trailing into silence.  
“You cannot answer because you do not believe yourself,” said Henry.

_How is it you do not understand? Because when you were seventeen you dueled your competitor Harry Hotspur in the field, and won your name by ending his. Yours is not the same reality._

“I do not answer because it is not your concern,” Montjoy said, rubbing his eyes angrily, tired but determined not to be. When he held his hand in front of him, it seemed to sway from side to side. He could not know if the fault was in his arm or his eyes. He had lost track of time. The guttering candle stubs defied interpretation. They had only minutes left in their lifetime, he guessed. The sullen fireplace contributed nothing in the dimly flickering gloom.

“Answer me,” Henry said.  
“No,” Montjoy matched him, harshness for severity.

“I hate this blind loyalty,” Henry grimaced, taking him into a tightening embrace, holding on with all of his genuine anger until the pain made Montjoy wince aloud. “In spite of everything.” _It makes me so angry._

“What you hate is your enemy, whom you cannot convert,” Montjoy said.  
“Can’t I?” Henry caught hold of his hand and ran a thumb over the ring’s smudged surface. He got a snort, half-resigned, half-irritated.

_Are you so prideful as to think you have earned all of your loyal followers? Do you believe each one sees the true worth of his king?_

“I hate this incessant attention,” the herald shot back, “In spite of everything.” _Come back when you have made good on your promise._ The reflected frustration was swallowed by the king’s knowing look.

_Are you so determined to deny all of your scars? Do you believe they make no mark on the script of your spirit?_

“What you hate is all of your abuses,” Henry said softly, “Which have made you this fearless, and this distant.” He brought his lips to the bared shoulder, the very edge of it, where he could feel the skin stretched thinly by stitching, and the slightest tremble. “They do not make me anything,” Montjoy protested.

Henry moved inwards, brushing by the collarbone, bruises showing off their deepest color. He touched an old burn scar, a long and slender puckered patch, crossing the base of the neck, and the herald flinched away with a suddenness that caught him off guard, retreating hastily, arm raised as if warding off a rebranding. “They certainly do not make me disloyal.”

“Will you deny me even something of no value?” Henry asked, arch and taunting.

In the quiet pause, he heard the herald’s breath catch. Just once. With a small, choked sound.

“Is that all?” Montjoy asked, words crumbling. He was asking himself, with sounds that were nothing more than a handful of old ashes, gathered from a burned out pyre of the soul and pressed together by numbed lips. They were bitter and dry in his mouth and eyes. They were barely uttered, fleeting, forms sinking into a whispery black abyss.

_Is that all you desire?_

Suddenly, he turned back, offering both hands, open and relenting, biting his lip against the pain. “I have misunderstood thee,” he said, dry-eyed, unblinking, making an uncertain choice with certainty, “but now I see how I was wrong.”  

_It is nothing of value._

“Oh,” said Henry, as he uttered a quiet curse. He was at fault, because he had spoken so exactly, and knew it. He tasted the freely drifting ashes, and saw the blank, purged expression, and repented instantly. As he reached out for Montjoy’s hands he saw them begin to shake. They trembled like a strummed string, keening an inaudible sound. He had to be slow and careful, because they were all crystal chimes in an atmosphere of liquid glass, and a strong wind blowing through would shatter everything from the sky down.

“You are not wrong,” he said, each word occupying its own spacious heartbeat. “And you have not misunderstood,” he said, casting every sound out of pure molten gold, untouchable by age or corrosion. He took the herald in his arms, and was gratified when the shivering abated. “All I want is the truth, so I can understand. Give me all of your old hurts, and I will banish them.”

There was a surfing rhythm striking him in the chest, and under the sound of its crashing, Montjoy asked softly, “How can you possibly understand?” He heard his own voice in accusation, and cringed, wishing it were not so childlike, so simple and sad. It was a narrow firebreak, and it was his one last but steadfast defense between the wildfire that spread without bound and the hopeful future.

Henry looked away for a moment, over his shoulder into the shadow of the corner wall, and when his gaze came sweeping back it was accompanied by a cool, sorrowful smile. “What do I understand? I was twelve when my father came back for all his inheritance and more. I was on campaign with Richard in Ireland. Before, his loyal knight and protégé. Then, his hostage. And worse, his betrayer.”

_How is it you can understand? When you were twelve, with nothing but your bold tongue you convinced the King you had no part in your father’s betrayal. With nothing but your own, true self._

“He had me for a month at Meath, before he went to meet his end.”

_The reality is, this is the world we live in._

“They can teach us nothing about value,” Henry said. “All that you have learnt is desperation.”

The candles were going out. In the sequence they had been lit, they extinguished themselves. First, three in a wrought-iron stand by the door. King and herald watched mutely as shadow came towards them. Next, the pair in simple silver saucers on top of the fine oak dresser. Those on either side of the bed were taller and thicker, defying the order; they held guard in their solitary holders. They would be the last to go out. Then, one in the recessed sill of either window, and finally, the matching stand in the opposite corner. In the smoky scarlet gloom, they stumbled like drunks, ungainly, arms over shoulders, and fell into the bed. Like children, afraid of the coming darkness, escaping into a fortress of their own making. Lit from below, the hanging canopy was deepest viridian and fringed with gold tassels, enclosing them in heavy shadow as Henry hooked both ends and pulled it closed. The last two candles went out. The fire was silent and brooding.

He knelt in a fragrant, featureless bower, completely blind. There was a sure hand, guiding his head, his arms. Where he laid his cheek down, he felt the soft material of Henry’s shirt, and the shifting of muscle as Henry took his weight onto his shoulder. He heard a double heartbeat, a prime even rhythm and its shallow echo.

“I understand,” Henry murmured, as he unwound a roll of linen. His questing hand brushed by Montjoy’s face, fingers extended like feelers, drawing the end of the strip behind it as it felt its way towards the wound it would sequester. “I know of value. It cannot be taken. It can only be given.” _I know. I know._

“Tell me,” he said, making a knot in the darkness.

“How can you possibly banish the past?” asked the herald, breathing in a mouthful of laurel and thyme. The aroma of the feast night clung fast to the fabric, and it was the first time that night he tasted something other than wine and ashes.

“Like this,” Henry said solemnly. He took Montjoy’s hand. The herald waited, holding his breath. Then, as realization dawned, he coughed out a laugh, genuinely surprised. “I’m afraid now I do not understand,” he said, looking around. He wanted to read Henry’s face, to take a cue, but it was nothing more than a vague shrouded outline beneath an endless and moonless dark green night. It was nothing more than a knowing smile beneath an expanse of sky blue eyes.

“Then how about this?” Henry cast the topsheet over their heads, drawing down the world to the last cramped space eked out between their foreheads and chins. Lightless, and airless. In a few heartbeats, Montjoy had to struggle to breathe. He only knew the darkness was shared by the small stirring breeze opposite, and slowly, but inevitably, they would both suffocate. “Holding hands,” he gasped with no small effort, realizing theirs too were still clasped somewhere in the great receding distance, “Hiding under the sheets. Are the schemes of small children. Your majesty.”

In a single short movement, the space shrank by half. “Oh?” whispered the king, astonished. Except, the hushed voice was deeply amused. The close sound startled the herald. Like a tunneling mole he had to see by the surface of his prickling skin, and all it could tell him was that somewhere right by his trembling heart, another breathing, living being existed. And it was coming right for him.

_Like small children, we are innocent._

“Then—this,” the smirking whisper faded as the space shrank again, to nothing. Blind and deaf and mute in a close cocoon of their own making, he could number the sensations of his world on his wounded hand, one, clasped in a firm, callused grip, two, the soft sigh of a breath as it left one body and entered the other, and three, the caress of warm lips, seeking to give. 

_In the darkness, we are so innocent._

In the absence of everything that proved so unnecessary to his being, everything but what was intrinsically his, so too he took on the kiss. _You are so clever, Henry. You are the fox, too clever for me._ As if the world had spun around, as it must have, then he was the giver, receiving. _You are the wolf, too fierce for me._ Bruised and tender and aching, regardless, freely giving. _You are nothing but innocent, shedding scars with me._

_But it is not enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	28. In White and Crimson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In black and ashen.

_To this English cathedral, long, lean and elegant, a word of praise, and a word of prayer._ He had once described its graceful unornamented arches to his little brother, just as he had all the other cathedrals and castles and palaces. He had once stood in the shadow of the colossal choir at Beauvais, and felt sheer insignificance define him. _A behemoth worthy of the ancient Romans._ He had once knelt from dawn to sundown at Amiens just to watch light track across its tall stone sky. _A brushing-by of God’s incandescent finger._

He had teased his brother, cloistered, and hungry for the outside world, by asking for his favorite. Which great House of light and stone would he claim, when he took his place in Church? Matheiu had scoffed and waved away the question. _Why should I have just one when you have been to them all?_ He had laughed to picture his brother, slender and poised and careful as he was; an itinerant monk. A mendicant in dusty tatters. It would have been jarring. Unusual. In the close, still air of scriptorium and chapel, the tree-climbing broom-wielding adventurer had been becalmed at last. _Because, little brother, that House will be yours, when I have none at all._

As immense as they were, as ethereal, he had soon realized, they were no different from any other. Like the poorest hovel, they were dug from the earth and blown from fire. In the grand towering silence within their walls he had received no divine answer. No one had heard his small cry of pain.He had even ridden fourteen hundred miles, Vézelay to Ponferrada, and then walked in the silent pilgrim trains, another two hundred, Ponferrada to Santiago de Compostela. Beneath a vast sky of stars, he had looked at the zealous devotion all around him, and finally understood the emptiness of his efforts.

Now as he stood amongst the tall arboreal pillars of St Paul’s, he suddenly found it unthinkable that this House was not inhabited. _Holy Father?_ Each massive column split at the crown into three impossibly slender shoots that reached out to the center for completion. Sharing a titan’s burden with their other halves, their mirror images, whom they were made for, and were made for them. _An English House? An English champion? Unthinkable._

“You could have stayed abed. Should have.”  
“So you say. Yet my hands are steadier than yours.”  
“Ha! And your eye no less sharp for being so blackened.”  
“Yes, it still hurts. Please put down your finger.”

To a watcher through the eastern rose, they would have been as flecks of gems, or many shining scales, all in neat rows, shivering as the dragon stirred in slumber. He was wearing black on azure, a dull geode concealing its internal color. _Let us receive his repentance as intended._ Up behind the altar, the Archbishop was wearing black on black, dull coal and darkest jet, and a matching shade on his grim expression. He contemplated seven steel blades laid out onto God’s table, and grimaced when he saw their bloody shadows, adorned in gutted flesh.

“Bourges looks like a man poisoned. Was that how you convinced him?”  
“If I gave him anything it was poison and antidote in one fell swallow. He will find his cardinal robes fitting consolation. Their cut was measured a long time ago.”  
“Alas, you have unmasked him. Another of our poor shepherds all in crimson and cloth-of-gold.”

He raised his gaze from altar to the great eastern rose as it immolated in the rising sun, and beheld a light as might fall from His molten eye. All the fractured colors of the world, all of its infinite gyrating patterns, falling on a congregation solemn in silk and sable and ermine. With its transcendental glory, mocking the insincerity of their funereal splendor. _All the fallen warriors wrapped up into His eye._  

“Shall I condemn him? I am standing in the same House, speaking the same words.”  
“You did not lose two brothers at Agincourt.”  
“Ten thousand countrymen is enough.”

They were offering a prayer, a psalm and a hymn. _Let them attain the kingdom of heaven._ They were falling on their knees, they were rising as one, French and English. In amongst a hundred shades of black there was very little to tell them apart. “But he is beloved by the Most High, so let him have his atonement.” A sweet harmonious mourning song swelled up into eaves, and reverberating, snowed back down onto them. _So let his aching heart have its salve._

“You must have said some fine things about Henry.”  
“ _Que pensez-vous du roi Anglais?_ ”  
“ _Le roi Anglais—est jeune et biau._ ”  
“ _Le roi Anglais tient ses promesses._ ”  
“Sounds like a threat, phrased like that.”  
“So it does.” 

*

Inevitably, the nattering rose, like the dawn chorus, as they waited. First the blackbirds, always, bold and unrepentant, the great Lords shattering the heavy silence with their impatience. Then, high and sweet overhead, the robins and wrens, trilling beside their husbands, or behind their fathers. Almost as one, the stiff assembly eased back, shoulders slumping, as they went from one ceremony to the next, seamless but for the costume change. From the back rows, the songbirds started in, the warblers and thrushes and finches swelling the massed volume, all in fierce anticipation of the rising sun. 

“So then he started singing.”  
“ _Richard_?”  
“No, Edward. He’s there on the table, kicking up his heels. Gets Niki right in the lips.”  
“I hope you restrained him.”  
“By God No, but Richard did.”  
“That explains the cheek.”  
“Quiet, you prating fools.” 

There was the king, ascending the dais, robed and crowned and unmistakable even to those crowded in at the western portal five hundred feet down the nave. He was flanked by his herald, nonchalant, and his young page, breathless with excitement. There were seven, eyes smudged but brightly gleaming. They bent their knees and presented their candles to the king. Every flame was lit. Each man’s honor had survived intact through the long vigil. _Or an alert page had rekindled a dying wick. I should know better. The meaning of honor._

“Forgive him, his head hurts sorely.”  
“How much did you make him drink last night?”  
“Twelve.”  
“Seven too many.”  
“He only started singing after the tenth.”  
“I swear I’ll turn around in a moment.” 

Each aspirant received the heavy touch of Henry’s sword to their shoulders, and rose, setting aside candle for blade. Only here, at the hour of their accolade, could they bear a naked sword before their king, and ever after, only in the bloody press of the field. _Pilgrim spirits, at the darkest hour, pledged. In the beatific light of morning, he is King and can no longer be touched by common hands._

“Where did you go last night?”  
“Here.”  
“Ah. So you witnessed?”  
“Yes.”  
“Know the third one over?”  
“Hevenynham? I know his name.”  
“Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk.”  
“A fine title for a young man.”  
“Unimpressed? He may claim both Mowbray and de la Pole as kin.”  
“Tell me plainly then.”  
“East Anglia is a writhing leap of leopards.”  
“England’s concern. Lancaster’s. Yours, not mine.”  
“Certainly, certainly.” 

Each steel blade was honed and polished; in the many-colored sunlight, seven shafts of standing lightning. Each white robe was pressed and pristine; tipped in blood red, seven pillars of purifying fire. As one, they recited a litany of vows, and sheathed their swords at their waists. Thomas buckled a crimson cloak around each of their shoulders, and William wrote their names into his book with a long white quill. At the tenuous boundary of noble and common, where the roaring cheer broke upon a beach of fine indifference, the handful of heralds expressed a delicate, polite reverence for the ritual performance. 

“Can you believe this?” John groused to him, as the ceremony dragged on. “Why if he wasn’t pompous enough—”

Montjoy flashed him a crooked smile sidelong. At last he understood why William had personally undertaken the all-night vigil. “Garter King of Arms,” he murmured, trying out Guyenne’s new name. Henry had created it for him, and it imbued him with a singular new authority, upending the loose social hierarchy of the English College. No wonder that some of his fellows, with their keen sensibilities, were all ruffled feathers and thrashing tails. “Long live your new tyrant,” he teased. Lancaster’s indignation made him unseasonably cheerful.

“Christ, what is Henry thinking?”

He had to stifle a chuckle.

“He thinks he would like a functional College. Too long have you motley few gone rowdy and unchecked, but no more. He will have you as efficient as his quartermasters and his captains.” _For the making of war._

He felt the mood all around them crackle with unspent static as Richard turned around and chimed in with a disgruntled accusation. “This is _your_ fault.” His blithe good nature had not recovered from the stresses of the triumph, and his lips were thinned and sour. _Ah, now I understand how you were his willing executor. His new title has some use just yet._ His smile muted, Montjoy made a sign of denial, then a sign of interrogation. He received Clarence’s baleful glare with genuine innocence. “Too efficient,” Richard listed sharply, “Too fast. Too reliable. At Agincourt you gave Henry far too much too swiftly.” The sharpness of unwanted truths cut into him, but he hid the bleeding behind a bland assertion.

“All I did at Agincourt was count the dead.”  
“And strip them.”  
“The opposite of giving to Henry.” 

Clarence was in no mood to accept a diversion. “Don’t you know how to give less and later?” He pinned Lancaster with a critical stare. “Don’t you know how to lower their expectations?” John shrugged, expressing a familiar air of defeat. “Their expectations only move in one direction. I shudder to think what you make of your own noble Houses. What they have learnt to desire.” The two English heralds exchanged a significant look, and John said, “Richard, enough.”

“No, he’s right.” He shrugged off the tight sensation between his shoulders. “You are entirely right.”

*

“Congratulations.” Montjoy embraced William briefly. Fresh from his midday meal the Englishman brought on his embroidered tunic the rich aroma of warm bread and mild spiced wine, sweet with cinnamon and honey.

He received the compliment with a modest smile. “What were you old maids gossiping about?” he asked offhandedly, as they sat down to work. Across the table, he passed quill and knife, then ink and chalk.

“All hail the new king,” Montjoy grinned. “Quake now, all the sluggards and good-for-nothings. With baton and flag, he comes to beat them into a sharp new shape.”

He smoothed out the vellum sheets he had brought with the edge of his sleeve. They were cool, and dry, and the soft creases readily soaked up the fine white powder he scattered. They were ready to be amended. His smile faded as he ran his eye down the long list of names in his handwriting.

“Do I look like a farrier to you?”  
“Watch out, knowing them, they’ll bite and kick.”

He cut the point with his right hand, but he raised the quill in his left. As he dipped the tip into the ink, he was acutely aware of William’s careful attention.

“Let me call for a scrivener.”  
“No need.”

 _By the office of William Bruges._ Montjoy wrote in a loose, uneven hand, across the top of the first page. _Garter King of Arms._ A poor match to the neat column of names, but he was pleased when none of the words came out smeared, or illegible. It seemed to satisfy the Englishman. Or perhaps it was seeing his new title, rendered for the first time, gloriously indelible, that made William nod generously. 

“What if the Bishop decides to come for inspection?”  
“Then he will be welcome to burn me at the stake.”  
“Do not be saying such things,” William grimaced. “He may yet be keen to.”

Bending over his own documents, he ignored Montjoy’s questioning glance, so the French herald allowed the statement to slide. The Englishman had brought a thick book of accounts instead of a list. As he flipped briskly to a relevant page, the many crossed-out rows of payments rendered gave way to new names, ink yet unfaded, paired columns glaring empty. _Agincourt_ , they were labeled, from start to end. A remorseless reminder from which he was compelled to avert his eyes. _First we bear the deaths, now, the costs of it, so base and insulting to all our grievous wounds._

They began with those of lowest status, whose small value was also their boon, offered within reason and accepted without complaint. Neither looked up from their notes as a servant interrupted with two cups and a pitcher of water. With tired admonishments they chased John away when he came, loud and nosy, then Henry’s page, and in his wake, a steady trickle of unwanted messengers, until both were rubbed raw, and ill-tempered, many hours later, began to raise their voices in weary contention.

“Unreasonable,” Montjoy said with disgusted finality, dropping his quill into the inkpot and leaving it there. He rubbed his eyes roughly, smearing a thin black line across one eyebrow, too tired to care for the weak vinegary biting. “Unthinkable. Must you make sport of me like this?”

“Sorry, Montjoy, but this is no jest.” William’s apology was as much disgruntled as it was sincere. “Last night I would have explained as much, had Henry not interrupted.” He did not back down but inflated in size and posture as Montjoy glared at him. “Yet, this is his meaning entirely. I cannot change it in the slightest.”

“You cannot? You wish to bear no responsibility? I see your hand all over this, Garter King of Arms. Does Henry remember how much we ransomed King John? Does he remember du Guesclin? Is he an unreasonable man?”

“And do _you_ remember how John came back to us?” William countered without hesitation, blotting his own quill on the bare table. _In dishonor, pure and simple. So poor and ashamed, he found his captors more welcoming than his countrymen. Look what you Englishmen have made of us._

“He came back to _die_ ,” Montjoy said, fingers working in frustration, “And so will all those in yonder Tower, before their price can be paid in full. Those that even _have_ a price. Can we not deal in goodwill? With some small chivalry, as we should?”

“You would accuse Henry of being unchivalrous?” The sound of William’s nib tapping the stained wood reminded him of bone chimes blowing in the wind, clear and clattering. He knew William could see through to his rising frustration. He knew the Englishman preyed upon it, like a weakness. The chirping rhythm rose and fell at random, picking away in quick staccato strikes at his strained composure. “Thus far you have not been able to produce his sword, so dishonorably pillaged from a baggage train. Thus far you have not been held accountable, though you should be.”

“In return, he gave an order that slit a _hundred_ highborn throats.” Acid and annoyed, he put the knife to his own palm and pressed down until the cut began to burn, hotly focusing. “ _Five hundred_ , and you say we have not been held accountable? We are paying weight for weight in blood not gold. Is that so worthless to your king?”

“You know how he marks worth?” Suddenly, William tossed down his quill and leaned forward, lips thinning. “Tell me how is it Henry is able to recognize your horse?”  
“ _Pardon?_ ” The French herald stared at his expression, surprised by the sharp challenge it contained.  
“Last night, he said, _I did not see your horse_.”  
“Is this pertinent?” His tone dropped ten degrees, a cloud passing over a winter sun, revealing the air so dry and cold between them. “So what if he can?”  
“So why argue with me? Perhaps you should negotiate with him directly.”

They held each other’s stare in a cool silence that lengthened and congealed, like a bowl of stewed meat left out too long, developing a surfeit of bitterness beneath a gummy clotted skin. Finally, Montjoy gave him a quiet smile. He was the first to look away, glancing down at the parchment in front of him, which he had been diligently amending. He had known the last few names would not pass without a fight, but he had not expected this angle, vicious as it was. Utterly merciless.

“You were furious when you found out John taught me the sign language,” he said softly, calling up a memory of tense confrontation. It came easily, freshly hearkened by the combative slant of William’s mouth. Then, he had an ally, and a formidable one. With a single sigh, John had shut his protest down. This time, he was alone, and a decade later, William was immeasurably more experienced, wiser, and sharper. Not a flicker of emotion marred the Englishman’s blunt and even stare.

“Did you think I led him on? Did you think it was because we shared a bed?” He sighed, putting away his own anger, drowning it in a well of deep black water. The water could not wash away the old bitterness. It was steeped in the taste of it. But, no matter. He hung on to his reason, stubbornly. “He taught me this first word at Bolingbroke’s coronation.” The gesture, made by his left hand, was mirrored, but not unreadable. It was, ‘Warning’ _. Heed my warning, you visiting herald, dark times coming. Watch your words. Watch your back._ “Because I had a mad king, and he had an unstable one. So he could warn me, when his was growing suspicious. So I could warn him, when mine was having some kind of fit.”

“I have heard all this before. Why repeat it now?” The passive demeanour suggested he had forgotten the incident, else forgiven John, but Montjoy knew better. William had never seen it as anything less than sheer betrayal.

“My teacher, you know well.” He showed the Englishman an open palm in an equitable manner. “Whose values are mine as well. You have known me almost as long as you have him.” Another quick gesture, fingers brushing his lips, expressing gratitude. “Two days ago you stood up to defend me against your Duke’s man. Why does your trust in me now wane, though I have not betrayed it?”

He realized he had expected some kind of kindred sympathy from the Englishman, because its complete absence now hollowed him, and the aching void defied satiation. He could only paper it over with a sad smile and pretend it had not been wanting.

“Because I _know_ you, Montjoy King of Arms.” William made an English sign. The same one. Made with his right hand, it was proper and correct. Its meaning was painfully clear. “In many ways, I trust you the most of all. I trust you to serve your mad king with every means you can.” _Another meaning for the sign warning is threat. Threatening._ “I will always defend you, when you are treated unfairly, you know that. But—”

As he hesitated, Montjoy braced himself. He could taste the lick of flame beyond the threshold, the heat of it scored his skin. It was not for nothing that William sucked in a deep breath before he continued.

“You have had another teacher,” said the Englishman, “I know. Do you still share his values?”

_And all you have learnt is desperation._

*

 _This memory is not locked away, behind a keyless door, in a room with no windows._ Like some others. This memory is ten years old, well-worn and smearing at the edges. But the center is still crisp, still sheer, and it begins with a summons.

He is quick enough to recognize the servant who brings it, but in the wake of his own sinking heart, in the dark roiling waves, he misses the nervous twitch, the licking lips and fidgeting fingers that should have warned him right away. Thus, in willful ignorance, he can still convince himself he is prepared. He can still believe he knows what comes, fierce and howling, and dares to face it head on. The grey clouds at the horizon, the thunder and lightning, he has weathered them before. He should be able to again. He chooses to answer the summons, at once, still in his lilied tabard. _As if it were some protection._

The first chamber was empty, as expected, with only cooling coals in the fireplace. He moved through the second equally quickly. “Come,” is the command at the final threshold, loud and languid. He had only knocked once, and knew instantly that he was keenly anticipated; the first course at a banquet, else the final. Either, in hunger, or in greed, and neither one good fortune. As he wavered, fingers lighting on the handle lightly, handling a smouldering ember, the command came a second time, in a rising tone, and he regretted his hesitation.

Gaze firmly lowered, he slipped into the bedroom and made a precise bow. “My Lord _d’Orleans_. What do you require?” In the uncomfortable silence that followed, he reluctantly looked up for guidance. To his great relief, the Duke was fully clothed. He lounged on the edge of the bed with his feet up on a small cushioned stool. Though a thin smile was on his lips, his regard felt unfriendly to the herald, frankly hostile. He had deliberately waited for the attention, and now returned it, like a grazing razor, with the barest hint of being cut. As he leapt to his feet, Montjoy started involuntarily.

Orleans stalked past him and slammed the door shut. “Are you a stable boy?” he demanded. Montjoy could feel the false edge of his aggression, could put his finger on it and peel it away, but for the certainty that waiting beneath was something darker, bloodier. He edged forward as the Duke lingered behind him. A hot, unwelcome breath on the back of his neck made him clench his hands into fists.

“No,” he had to answer, to fill up the silence full of sharpness. He took another step forward, and whipped around to face the formidable head of House Orleans. Face to face, he could deal with him, as master and servant, direct, hierarchical, and never otherwise.

“Then why are you so rude?” He refused to let the anger burn him, and bowed again, deeply.  
“My deepest apologies, my Lord. Please, I am here at your service.”

As the Duke reached out, Montjoy shied away from the touch of his hand. The sudden movement only served to widen Orleans’ humorless grin. “Better,” he said, taking hold of the herald’s face. This time Montjoy had held his ground stiffly. “But you are a slow one, aren’t you?” A sudden push thrust him off balance. A violent second made the situation irrecoverable. He stumbled backwards, falling hard against the side of the bed. Heart pounding in his ears, he looked up at a face devoid of sympathy, and quashed the terror down.

“Strip,” said the Duke, like steel on shrieking steel, eyes glinting metallic. 

_There it is._ He met the remorseless stare directly, without flinching, and felt himself begin to bleed profusely into the empty pit of his stomach. It would make him sick. _Last time, there was a fight. Last time there was blood._ It would fill and fill until it overflowed into his mouth. _This time, I know you._

“No,” he said, getting to his feet.

“I gave you a command,” said Orleans. He wanted to compel with nothing but his voice, it was apparent to the herald, who was watching his twitching hands warily. In some arcane assertion of his dominance, the denial of which would cost something dear from either one of them. Nonetheless, clearly, as evenly as he could, he said, “This is not my duty.”

“Then run away, little boy,” the Duke hissed, allowing Montjoy to duck past him. He waited until the door handle was within reach, before he said, “So this is the extent of your father’s title. The end of it.”  
“What?” Montjoy drew back his hand as if scalded.  
“I will tell my brother you are unfit.”  
“Why?” he cried out, despair twisting like a knife. It was no idle threat. It was a simple and callous fact, a hand sweeping away a fly.  

Abrupt as a _franc à cheval_ flipping face, its symbol of freedom flashing, the Duke called him back with open arms and a gentle beckoning wave. “Come here.” He made himself return to the embrace. “What do you think your duty is?” Orleans whispered, right in his ear, hugging tightly to him. _What is the name of a trap, when it can be seen, plain as daylight? Is it punishment?_ “I shall bear my master’s voice. I deliver his messages. I bring him news.” _Is it torture?_ “And?” He was being borne down into the bed, and resisted ineffectually, not knowing what to do with his hands when his enemy was already skin-close, whose person was sacrosanct. _Is it fate?_ “I don’t know,” he said through gritted teeth, willing his hands to open, forcing cramping muscles to his excruciating bidding.

 _This time, you know me._ He was not slow. _This time, a different kind of fight._ He had caught a distant glimpse of the lesson being imparted piece by aching piece, and he could not decide if it was worth all the blood welling up in his throat, all the scorching ash in his lungs, to exchange it for his father’s title. _This time, bloodless, painless. A different kind of screw._

“Don’t play the fool with me.” Orleans straddled his prone body, pinning him down with his weight. “It is the duty of any servant to make his master’s will a reality.” His thumb brushed delicately over the embroidered lilies, tracing out their petals as he might have caressed the real thing. “You think you are too good to offer all that you are?” Leering, and angular, the shadows cast across his face did not seem to be a creation of the light. They were seeping out through the slits in his eyes, tendrils from whatever monstrous darkness was engulfing him on the inside. When Montjoy shut his eyes, he slapped the herald’s face brusquely, and they snapped open again, purged of all emotion. _A new capitulation._

“Answer. Can you do what it takes to make a powerful man change his mind? You have one chance.” There was a voice that was an onslaught, stabbing away at unprotected flesh, more real than any cruel device. More tangible than the body itself. The source of the pure disgust. The feeling of it. “You think your duty begins and ends with your pride? You are the herald of the House of Valois. The House of Orleans. You are a symbol with some small worth.” There were hands were clutched in his shirt, his hair, tugging him like a marionette. “You are young and handsome. You think you will never be asked to give?” There was a thick pain in his heart, making it hard to breathe. “Answer me now. Can you give what is asked for, even on your knees?”

_Forget title, legacy and estate. In this moment, I just need you to stop talking. Dear God, I just want you to be silent._

“I can,” he said.

_So I can hear my own heart beating._

“Prove it.”

_So I know that I am still alive._

*

“William, _my friend_ ,” he said at last, struggling to press a passing semblance of amicability through the scorching iron sieve clutching his throat. Each tense syllable arrived separate, and sounded foreign even to him. In tightly clenched fingers, he picked up the quill again. “My respect for you derives not from your titles, though they are impressive.” _You know me well enough to know exactly what you are saying._

He finished off the list in a single breath he barely registered he was holding. The numbers that had made him balk and protest now screamed into the distance, propelled by the red-hot ringing in his ears.

“Do not presume it will survive all your insinuations.” _You have forgotten that I am not one of your own._ As soon as it was done, he pushed to his feet. “Since you are so determined,” he said, “then tomorrow I will negotiate with your King _directly_.” He pressed his sleeve over the wet ink, little caring as the stain soaked in. He only wanted to be gone, before he lost his composure.

“Montjoy, where are you going?” William seemed contrite as he stood up as well, but he made no move to stop the herald from leaving. “Sit down. Let us talk.”

“I am going to the Tower,” he said coolly. In the doorway he turned back, showing a face pale as fine wax, drained of all color. “My Lords will want to know their worth. And you know, not a single one, not even the firstborn son of Louis d’Orleans, will even _think_ to ask me what you have just asked.”

_In all the commotion, I have forgotten I am not one of your own._

*

He did not much like the expression on the face of Charles d’Orleans. _Firstborn son yes, but what of the father lingers?_ There was the outrage, as expected, but there was the relief, in equal measure. Stricken yet thankful. The emotions surfaced, and submerged beneath a roiling, uncertain sea. The elegant young Lord had stayed for one night in his plush prison, and now the stark reality of his situation was dawning on him. His carefree appearance was noticeably tattered.

“What shall I say to England?” Montjoy prompted, after Orleans had stood silently at the window for too long, hands clasped tightly behind his back. _Am I to be glad or upset that this is Louis’ inheritor?_ No ransom, was the dark tidings. Value beyond measure. Henry had a cool remorseless understanding of the state of the continent. _Am I to regret or to repent?_ He had brought the debt-roll, but it had not been asked for. Now he resisted fidgeting with the neat ribbon that secured it.

“John?”  
“Terms continuing.”

The silence was ruthlessly introspective. His father, in a similar mindset, would have made the air freeze solid, suffocating him, but he felt only empathy for the son. There was a Lord more suited for Richard’s court, for a more peaceful time.

“Ask Henry to set him free,” Charles said at last. “Beg him for sweet charity.”

If the answer disappointed him, he did not allow any indication to escape as he bowed in answer. To his surprise, Orleans left the window to embrace him.

“Montjoy,” he whispered by his ear, “I know you.” With one sure hand on the back of his head, holding him tightly, the young head of House Orleans reclaimed his absolute prerogative, reassuring with a certainty he should not have possessed. Like a churchman, reflected in His light, far older than his twenty years. _Far more worthy._ “Don’t fight him, I command thee.”

Orleans pulled back fractionally to give him a letter. It was sealed and stamped with his signet. “Tell His Majesty what a fine reliable man is Philip. Tell my father-in-law. Give this to my brother.” The head of House Orleans kissed him warmly on both cheeks. “You have a look in your eyes, my herald,” he teased, brushing gently away at the ink stain on his brow. “I am not yet dead.”

_Do you know, my Lord, I watched your father die. And did nothing. I do not know if I could have saved him, but I did not even try._

*

There was the wrath that he had looked for, the inferno that scorched the earth and made the air a single solid flame. It wreathed a sword of brittle black iron, which would shatter itself before yielding anything.

“I am not surprised,” snarled the Marshal. “Of the man whom I saw in the field. I am not surprised, but I am disappointed. This is how they work at us.” He had the list clutched in one hand, and Montjoy winced as it crumpled softly. He decided he would copy it over, for the king. “This is how they make us weak. Do not pay a single livre,” he said. Eyeing the herald’s dismay, he handed the parchment back more carefully. “Diggers and sappers,” he said, harsh with disgust. “Underminers.”

“May I convey a word of thine to England?”  
“God as my witness, tell him to bring that challenge of single combat. I am no Dauphin, but I promise to give him sport. I will win my own way home.”

_Or die trying._

“My Lord—?” He barely touched a breath of question. The look that answered brooked no disagreement nor uncertainty.  
“Or do not. No matter. Young lions are easily baited.”  
“Marshal,” he said, despairing.  
“Mark me, Herald, you should not have interfered.”

He paced with a heavy, disturbed step. This was no courtier in a cushioned cage, able to strip his eyes from the surrounding bars to seek the words on a written page, or close them in time with a beautiful music. There were worn teeth gnawing on the iron. There was a gaze full of hatred deep in the corner.

_It is far too late, and too much blood later._

“What shall I tell His Majesty?”

The question was the first of his make to pierce the rage. Just for a moment, as the Marshal turned his face away, it burned his lips with fierce cold.

“What have I to say to his Majesty?” the Marshal asked, “I cannot even breathe for the shame of it. Shame on my name for the next thousand years. What can I say to him?”

“Your good counsel.” He spoke into a chasm descending further than the light could follow, and heard his own voice echo back up the sheer walls, subtly changed. “My _counsel_?” Boucicaut was scoffing.

“Tell the Count of Armagnac not to undervalue this baying King, as we have. Tell the Duke of Burgundy not to play his games with him.” With a loud exhalation, he put his hand over his eyes, and relented. “Tell his Majesty that Agincourt was caused by our sheer incompetence, not by any divine action nor stratagem ultimare. The fault is ours. The failing, ours. Mine. On my head, be all the blame, if it should give him some comfort or confidence.” He made a snort and a forceful gesture of dismissal. “Of course, Valois Herald, you were there. You have always known what to say.”

_I was there. I said these. They were no comfort._

*

He settled against the side of the stable wall with a sigh of relief, and nodded a greeting to the burly stablemaster. Hugo was sitting on a small stool, comically low for his giant height. His knees bowed up to either side, occasionally brushing by his elbows as he worked away at a piece of tack. Broad and taciturn like his charges, the Englishman acknowledged the herald’s presence with nothing more than a nod.

“Rare to see you here this day, Master Hugo. This hour.” The sweet Sunday afternoon lingered in the air, cool and breathtaking, loath to make way for the advent of dusk. It was there, teasing, at the horizon, in the shadow of the sweeping clouds, but like a fond older brother it gave the sky to the last light of day. He was tired of deliberation. Of anger and disappointment. Tired of being tired. He wanted nothing more than to saddle his mount and ride. _But where to?_

“Rarer still for the king to be out hunting with all his brothers,” said the king’s stablemaster, as he set aside the harness for another, nearly identical in make. Craning around the man’s broad shoulders, Montjoy saw a sizeable stack of them on the ground, so he crossed to other side of the stool and picked one up. They were new, and each had to be pricked and knotted in a dozen places.

“Will they return soon?” he asked, as the Englishman waved to a bag of leather strips open at his feet.  
“They better,” he groused, “Unless they think I’ve given them horses what can see in the dark.”  
“Some say Charlemagne’s horse Tencendur could do just that.”  
“Aye, and fly as well? Drink man’s blood?” Hugo made a derisive sound, pointing to the sky with his awl. “A man can be a great man, but a horse is a horse.”

The herald laughed quietly, and when the sound had faded, they worked in silence. The task was awkward for his trembling fingers, and he did not work fast, but the Englishman offered no comment, nor thought to give him any instruction. So, he simply worked, appreciating a moment of accomplishing something of substance, however small, in the company of someone who found his expertise sufficient.

“Have all your horses come back?” he asked at length.   
“No,” Hugo grumbled. The round gravelly sound turned over in his throat, drawing out into a fading avalanche. “What of my prize gelding I gave away to your friend? He had the worn soles of a common soldier, and worse, the shoulders of a bowman.”

Hugo tilted his head up to glare at the herald, and Montjoy gave him a wan smile. He thought the stablemaster was joking, but he was never certain.

“Dear Hugo, your eyes are sharper than a hawk’s.” As if he had been in court, Montjoy made a small bow, drawing out another derisory grunt. “Forgive me, but he was my creditor. And he is one of Henry’s knights. It will not be long before he learns to appreciate your prize.”

“Hmph.” The horsemaster was only partially mollified.

“Besides,” the herald’s smile deepened, showing a hint of teeth, “You will cheat all his fellows. All those other poor souls who know not forelock from fetlock will get the sway-backed and winded and skittish. You have a thousand prizes. Who shall you save them for? Yonder princes?” He nodded to the eastern gate, which they were both watching, for it was where the king’s hunting party would first show themselves. “They are not able to ride them all.”

“For one grey gelding with those lines, I will have to give some lordling a stallion that will most like get him in trouble.” Montjoy laughed again, enjoying the rare feeling. Mischievously, he said, “Two stalls down, I see a stallion that’s like to get someone in trouble.” It was as large as they come, seventeen hands at least, and glossy as a moonlit lake. He recognized it from one exhausting, storm-tossed channel crossing.

“Ah,” the Englishman nodded without having to look down the line of stalls. “Duke Humphrey’s. His name is Stormus. Handsome, that one.” _Like his master, and as bravely fierce. As brazen._ “Don’t get too close. He bites.”

“The Duke brought his stallion to war, and on procession, but not to the hunt?”   
“He is proud, not stupid.”  
“Fair enough.”

Hugo’s forehead creased over at his tone of voice, sinking into a wealth of delicate traces over skin more patched and weathered than the harness leather. “Watch it, Frenchman,” said the stablemaster, with good-natured menace. “These are princes and horses I trained by my own hand.” _Speaking of princes and horses._

“The king rode a white stallion,” he said, witnessing a memory grown ghostly with too many hauntings. _Ruthlessly, it rode us down._ “And then, a white mare.” _Stately, into London town._

Hugo grinned, implicitly flattered. “Aye, Gwynfa and Calla. Caught your eye, eh?” As his own son and daughter, he named them, with overwhelming fondness. “Tell me, what think ye?”

_The one does not match in ferocity. The other pales like the moon before the sun._

“I will avow, they are a pair as fierce and lovely as can be,” His expression grew distant as he mouthed their names. “And knowing it, so proud and haughty.” _Far too imperious, for any other man._ “Far too much trouble.”    
“Look at’yer!” Hugo exclaimed, startling him with a bellowing laugh. “Like yours is any different.”  
“She is,” he said, frowning, “She is—”  
“She is prouder than she has any right to be.”

“And knowing it, she can be sweet as any other. She is as much honey as the sting of it. She does not care for appearances. Don’t you know? Five years ago I saw a prince racing a wild dappled dun through the forest at Windsor. Foam-flecked. Drenched in sweat. Then, they did not care for appearances.” _They were gone in an instant, and thereafter, never to be seen again._ He fell silent, losing the thought’s trailing end. The stablemaster was giving him a strange look, which made him feel irretrievably foolish.

“You tell me, Herald, if prince and king should be the same make.”

_A horse is a horse, but a man can be a great man._

“Who are these fearsome men, Hugo? These princes you have trained—” _They are not what we expected.  
_ “D’ye not ken them?” said the Englishman, hands stilling for a moment as he stretched his shoulders. “I do.”

Suddenly, they were there, coming as though called, clattering through the gateway three at a time. Flush with brilliant noise and barking, howling hounds, drawing out servants from several doorways at once. Hugo waved impatiently at the clutch of boys emerging from his own domain, but the horse master himself was in no rush.

“Look close now,” he said, gesturing sagely with his tool. “See the eldest. Riding my best hunter like some round-bodied Welsh cob. Good for nothing but fighting. The next one must be contrary to his brother, so he sits too lightly. Looks fine, but it isn’t firm. Then the third, same problem as the first. Worse, since he learnt it from him. Spot of undeserved admiration there.” The herald followed the travel of the shining pointed tip hypnotically. He could not read the same language, with the eyes of a man watching princes and horses alike grow up. “Watch. The last is the best horseman.” Humphrey was laughing as his horse danced around the outside of the milling band, stepping smartly to the high-spirited waving of his hands. The cheerful sound reached them clearly across the courtyard. “He alone can ride a storm in a procession,” Hugo said proudly.

As they dismounted one by one, handing over their reins, the stablemaster got to his feet at last, brushing cast-off bits and shreds of leather from his lap. “I see four fine horsemen,” Montjoy said, in lieu of a farewell, as Hugo went to greet the king and his brothers. A small amount of back and shoulder-slapping suggested they had found their mounts satisfactory. _I see four harbingers._ Spanning the darkening courtyard, clouds of dust billowing up, many sets of eyes slipped around the tall horsemaster, and marked him. He tried to remember who he was, as he leaned back against the stable wall, affecting a nonchalance he did not feel. At two hundred yards, straight as an arrow’s flight, how would they know if he returned all their gazes with fear or forlorn understanding?

 _Behold, a white horse; and he that sat on him had a bow; And a crown was given unto him; and he went forth conquering._  


*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	29. Audience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It does not have to be spoken, but it should be said in the same language.

 

In the prideful voice of the Valois king, he offered up fully half of what had been promised, once at Bretigny, and again, at Calais. The offer was not humble. Nor was it mean. Its munificence surprised many in the throne room.

 _Look carefully around you, King of England. See all those who did not believe you would triumph._ Those receiving it with open greed in their eyes; they would have signed it in a heartbeat. Their gloating satisfaction bore down on him. With many eager eyes they scrutinized what he had brought. A ribbon-ringed document, dense with a thousand small words, each one recited without emotion.

 _Terms and conditions that would ensnare the foolish._ _But Henry Plantagenet is no fool.  
_ “To King Henry, our grudging respect. He has shown his strong arm. His fated inheritance. A most deserving son of a House in ascendance.”

The fine, heavy parchment made his aching shoulder tremble, but his voice was still and cold, as windless snow, matching the demeanor of him who received it. Words without weight, descending in a cavernous silence. They colored the air white and grey, and suffused it with a wintry scent, but melted before they ever touched the ground.

In a chapel all of jewel tones, whose ceiling is painted with the sky and stars, the King of France looks to his pigmented heaven in silent petition. As he speaks, he imagines this very court room. The muted frenzy that greets the words of his herald. What he cannot know is the look on the face of his young and distant nephew. He has only ever met the father. He only knows the deeds of the son.

 _Do you know how you are vexing my sovereign?_   _Do you know how you are killing my beloved master by inches?  
_ “To him equally, our reprimand. He has taken what was never his to begin with, in pursuit of a claim with no merit. Let him look to his own starving people, and rule them with a just and benevolent hand.”

 _Have you seen the face of Henry Bolingbroke, homeward bound_? A man wearing a most appealing nature, battered steel and hardened honor. In pursuit of his imperial justice, as clean as it is bloody, he cannot be defied. He cannot be denied his due. It is not too far off, Montjoy thinks, as he beholds the silent throne. The resemblance is fine. This edge is sharper. Fiercer. The father was lance and rider, judge and executioner. The son is famine, sword and fire.

“We should like to treat as Christian Kings. As righteous men. Give to him, what is his. Return to us, what is ours, and let us be in peace.”

_We think to offer Mars an olive branch. He is not content._

He is quiet, chiseled stone. The undercroft of a catacomb; into which echo, all the thoughts of his advisors. They whisper into his ear, churchmen and courtiers, or they stridently make their opinions known, the great lords, his bloodline, his warriors. Not once does his gaze waver. It is pinned on the herald of his enemy, who cannot for a single suffocating breath look away.

_He is a whisper of warmth in an airless darkness. He is the heartbeat at the other end of the world._

Without a single spoken word, his intention is known. His eyes are grim and direct, and they are the only two in the room speaking. A language of signs, like heralds, coming to consensus before the quorum has even drawn its first breath. As the chattering rises in volume, Montjoy commits every word to memory, but he knows their worth keenly. They are nothing but a fine, cool mist, passing over the face of a mountain, not knowing it is unmoving.

_We are the only two in the room speaking, like second selves divided, in a wordless hollow ache._

The proclamation, when it finally airs, is cut stone and wrought iron. A gibbet to hang the living on. A grave to swallow the dead and dying. _No King of England, if not King of France._

*

There was a large oak desk in the center of the audience chamber. Dark, shined wood, dense and imposing, with a matching throne-like chair. The lions and the lilies were carved into the front of it, on a hand-sized shield, and into the center of the chair’s high back. Bright, raw gold, beaten flat and warm with candlelight, picked out the thrashing tails and petals. Lapis lazuli, for the tongues and claws and flower fields. Refined vermillion for the rest. The arms of Kingdom and King, at an incredible expense. No clutter could be allowed here, where sheer sovereignty was exercised. No manner of personal taste. Only a selection of quills, and knives, neatly arranged, and a squat pot of ink; its mouth still sealed by wax. The sound of Henry breaking it open was a crisp snap. As the herald’s gaze leapt up from the table’s surface to meet his, Henry beckoned to him with a smile.

“What else have you brought for me, Montjoy?” 

*

 _The King is not well._ There are dark shadows under his eyes. They nestle among the folds of many lucent wrinkles. All the fading color, all the signs of strain, are premature. In the warm glass-stained light they age him ten years. His hand, as it brushes by the shoulder of his herald, is touched by incense and candle wax. He has a heartache that cannot be eased by prayer. _He does not need your aggravation._

“Tell him all that he yearns to hear.”

 _The King is not sated._ Without his golden crown, sixteen-pointed, and his crimson robe, silk and ermine, he is ten years younger. Squint, and it is just barely possible to recover; a dashing prince in dark velvet, robbing the robbers, wild and happy. A vision to cling to, even as it immolates. _We offer a single lamb, and he has come for our firstborn sons._

“Render him nothing but our terms and conditions.”

_A herald’s paradox. Give him everything and nothing, in equal measure._

*

_A coat of royal mail, torn in half a dozen places. The bloodstains have been scoured by sand and pumice, but the missing rings have not been replaced._

Henry stood beside his chair, too restive to sit. Too restless and distracted, leaning forward, ringing with some pent-up force. He has been almost all day in his throne, and cannot bear to sit a moment longer. The largest tear ran from right armpit to the top of the shoulder. With two fingers, Henry teased it apart. His expression shaded over.

A wrenching pain answered in Montjoy’s shoulder. He hid a wince behind tightly pressed lips. As Henry cast a close eye over him, he was not sure if he had been successful. For a lingering moment, they were both speechless. “Be wary, Montjoy,” said Henry finally. His voice was dangerously soft, his eyes prophetic and faraway. “Let me protect you.” In answer, Montjoy put one hand on his tabard, where there embroidered upon an azure shield, three lilies in thread of gold. They did not match the carvings on the desk and chair. The way the petals folded, and thinned, wide at the cusp, tips coming to a point, like a windless flame. They did not seem to be the same.

_We are the only two speaking from the heart, barely heard above the furor of blood and adulation._

“That will not suffice. You know it will not.”  
“It will.” _It must._

 _A fur-lined cloak, wool and rabbit._ _Smelling faintly of salt and horses, reminiscent of the sea._ _Its plain appearance concealing the quality of its make. Its hood and lapin pelt concealing the stature of its owner. Was it ever once used for an adventure?_

He placed it on the desk, neatly folded. Henry raised one eyebrow. “Keep it,” he said. With a wan smile, Montjoy shook his head. Tempest and thunder could mask the depths of his personal betrayal. He did not need another reminder of it.

 _One etched ring, in soft gold._ Somehow, he was unable to give it up onto the table.

*

“Good day, Niki.” He found Sigismund’s large and grumbling herald in the small antechamber, waiting for court to convene. The Drachen herald had cropped blond hair, faded from hours in the sun, and skin like old tanned leather, giving him a mercenary air. At his waist, a decorated knife sheath, conspicuously empty. If Montjoy knew him at all, it had simply been relocated to his boot, or his sleeve.

Nicolaus turned around with a scowl. He did not appreciate the diminutive he had earned from his fellow heralds one dark and drunken Parisian night, nor did they care to let him forget it. Despite a muttered imprecation, the Hungarian clasped his offered arm amicably enough. “My master prays for your fallen warriors,” he said. “God have mercy on their souls.” His sympathy was rough but sounded sincere.

The gruff man had not spoken in Latin, the formal, nor German, the bridge, in which they were both fluent. He had not replied in English, as Montjoy had greeted him. He had not fallen back on Hungarian, which he knew Montjoy understood. A sign of respect. Equally, an insult. _Paradox without resolution. A lizard consuming its own tail._ A bronze dragon coiled, nose to tail, over his dark green tabard, its one black eye hunting wary. The Order of the Dragon was his immensely practical master’s one honorable claim to conceit. His French was passable, if harsh on the ears. It gave him a simple excuse for his gaucherie.

“We are grateful for his consideration.” Montjoy switched to French accordingly, unaccented, as he would have spoken it in Rouen, and they could almost make believe they were meeting in a more genial setting. That neither one was waiting to offer a flesh and blood tribute to a Caesar up in arms.

“My liege very much wishes to meet with your master.”  
“Of course, King of Arms. Then I will be in Rouen before the week is out.”

They shook hands over it. _Once you have heard the terms of our surrender. Put your ear to the door, and reconsider your own offer._

“How are you?” Nicolaus asked, one thick finger pointing to his own cheek. At Saturday’s banquet he had sat briefly at their table, and the French herald had given him nothing but a tired smile in explanation. It had not diminished his curiosity in the slightest.

“Pitiful,” Montjoy shrugged. Niki’s stern expression slid off his ingenuous smile. The sling had been discarded, and his shoulder pressed into service, but there was nothing he could do about the bandages on his palms or the color of his face.

“Sympathetic,” he said.  
“Montjoy,” Nicolaus grumbled. “Shall you give me a straight answer, or shall I speculate wildly? A king’s herald coming battered off a battlefield could cast many kinds of shadows.”  
“No fables please,” Montjoy said lightly, “No mystery. We have simply given the English much cause to be bold, and much aggravation for it.”    
“The English king? Or his men?” His even gaze called the Frenchman a liar.    
“Ha, these are _raiders_ , Niki. These _dogs_ of war. How well do you think Englishmen hold on to their honor?”  
“Such a question I dare not answer. It is not wise to test the lion’s teeth on your own skin. Tell me then you are so foolish.”  
“Does it change your impression of me?”

A broad smile cracked the Hungarian’s stern mask. Through a dense hedge of curly beard and weathered skin, the smooth tips of teeth peeked through, a glimpse of tombstones in a lonely forest-claimed cemetery. “What do I know of thee?” he demurred, desiring to be enigmatic, and Montjoy indulged him with a thin smile. An explanation without substance, exchanged for a reputation of dubious merit. Montjoy changed the subject before the trade could be called into question. 

“What do you know of our dear Garter King of Arms?”  
“He does not seem like the same man. He has a new smile meet for his new title.”  
“He has a new eye for fierce northern beauties.”

_Each hungry for the lands we claim. Neither will be allowed to deal under the table._

Nicolaus snorted loudly, but his returning gaze was thoughtful. Sigismund had not chosen his herald for his heritage, which was not lowly, nor for his fighting skill, which was not poor. Montjoy answered his unasked question with a considerate nod.

Theirs was an office that bridged opulent throne and arduous road, undesirable to the highborn, out of reach of the uneducated. As a result, there tended to be very few fools in the colleges, and too many quick wits lurking behind unassuming martial veneers. They heard raised voices from the next room, surely the sound of Henry’s entrance, of his court’s congregation. He sat his throne with a loose-limbed ease his father never knew. In the close, windowless room, the warm air clung to the French herald thickly. He felt an ill feeling surge through him.

_To have come to the court of a dread king to find out, you know nothing of value._

“Is it true that your master laughed?” he wondered out loud. There was a flash of surprise from the Drachen herald.  
“Do you fear he will be partial? Or do you fear his action on your weakened borders?” Nicolaus asked with a faint sneer, as if the implication had insulted. His smile took on a biting edge Montjoy understood to be mocking.

 _You think we are peers. Equals. Yet, your Emperor did not trip into his handful of crowns. Yet, lions were born to consume each other. Out of courtesy, I do not mention his history. Out of courtesy, you will not pretend to forget it._ Montjoy glanced at him sidelong, brows raised, repudiating the affronted charade with a simple gesture.

“Fear not, Montjoy,” Nicolaus said. His smile was broad and ironic. “My master has enough troubles. He has heathens outside his city walls and scheming Churchmen within. He has no time nor appetite for more.” It was only a hint of a lie, and so, passed by the herald’s lips without twisting back on itself.

“I notice you have not answered my question.”

“How you hear of these things— All right, the truth? Yes, he laughed. It is no secret. It does not have to be one. It is not that my master celebrated your destruction. Not that at all. Rather, he was receiving a revelation. Levem principem mutatio _mirabilis_. We are all witness to an act that defies explanation. You were there. You tell me how it happened.”

Montjoy shrugged. There were explanations. Mundane and simple ones, entirely irrelevant. The miracle was wrought on the tongue, and in the wind, rising. Untameable by base reason.

“What upstart prince? What callow king?” The Hungarian herald tapped the dragon emblem pinned to his collar. “Now, we will treat with Henry as equals. Now we will make an offer worthy of one.”

“Until now, you have not treated with him as equals?”

“Have you?”

*

“A letter from Queen Isabeau.” He presented it to Henry with both hands steady. It was rolled not folded, to maintain its contents, and sealed with ribbon and wax, azure and red ochre. The Queen had pressed the design into the soft seal herself, with an expression of strange finality.

_Per pale, azure seme-de-lys, and, fusilly in bend, azure and argent._

_House of Wittelsbach and Visconti._ A peerless lineage, conferring to her an influence not entirely dependent on her husband’s throne. _House of Valois._ A House in madness and infidelity, exalting her power, honing all her worries. _How they must crowd around her now,_ he thought. _A maze of knives, unfeeling, unfriendly._ Her conduct must be exacting, to walk without harm.  

Henry glanced at the returned armor, in its shapeless pile, then at Isabeau’s sigil. Raised in soft wax, the lilies were smudged, petals wilting, but neither of them would ever mistake the heraldry. He asked softly, “Tell me if you delivered those letters I gave you at Agincourt.”

“They were delivered by my hand.” He was clean, and careful, in how he spoke. Nonetheless, Henry frowned, lines appearing under his eyes. He knew the cost of it. _I put them into the hands of their bearers, and those hands then put them into the fire._ Charles had shredded his message, slowly and methodically, but the Queen had been deep in thought, and her parchment had fallen from waxy fingers.

As Henry broke the seal in half, he hesitated again. “Open or sealed?” he asked.

 _You know._ Montjoy tapped two fingers on his lips, and shrugged. A noncommittal response, eliciting a smile that was two-thirds bloodless and one third grimace. _Why ask? They had never been meant only for their intended. Picked off my dead body, they would have had the same igniting effect._ “An ambush in the woods is strange, and a coat of English royal mail is curious,” he murmured, looking for Henry’s expression, judging his smile as it thinned and faded. “But three letters sent in place of one is damning,” he said, staring hard, and it was Henry’s turn to make a gesture empty of meaning, sadness in his smile.

*

She stood at the window, a book in her hand, absently forgotten. A breeze stirred the fringes of her pinned and decorated hair, and the slanted mid-morning sun caught the twinkling net of seed pearls. Illuminating all the emotions of her distant reverie, as they flowed freely across her face. Sorrow, in a vast flat sea, there bobbing on the surface, uncertainty, and sharp pain, lurking underneath. The herald feared she had also forgotten he was there, awaiting direction, that she might reveal something too personal, too secret to be burdened with. In the side profile, her aquiline Visconti heritage still shone through. Softened and wrung out by two decades of a trying marriage, yet still striking. Still a reminder that she could raise a finger and push back on the world.

“The English king,” she said, drawing Montjoy’s patient gaze, “Their wild prince.” There was a brief pause. He watched a drop of ink painstakingly gather at the end of his quill, and just as it was about to fall, replaced the tip in the pot. “Fearless. Hot-blooded. Wanting to war to prove his worth.” Her accent was as thick as ever. Alien as ever. He suspected it was deliberate. A steel-shod exercise in will, and intention, from a woman with a steel spine. “Is he so different from any other young man?”

They hated her. In the streets, and at court. Her husband was mad. She was lonely, and sad. She had danced with the handsome Duke of Orleans. _Danced._ For that, they hated her. _How unfair_ , he thought, but his opinion mattered for nothing. _The Duke can be so sweet and charming._ He knew the truth, and did not hate her for it. _I saw a snake coiled by the apple of Eden._ She did not know the truth, but trusted him implicitly. _After all, I did nothing. Said nothing._

“We will pacify him,” she sighed, “Like any other young man. In the same way, with the same things.” As she glanced at him, he raised the quill out of the ink again. “I only wish it were not Katherine,” she said softly. _The youngest, and most innocent. Let her lot not fall like Isabella’s._ With her last, lingering silence, she seemed to invite his comment, but he only nodded in silent acknowledgment. _I could say something. To ease your heartache. Perhaps, I know something. There is a chance you are wrong about him. But I won’t speak._

*

“Do you often take Queen Isabeau’s dictate?” Henry asked, after a cursory glance at the first page. That he recognized the simple handwriting surprised Montjoy. “The Queen does not often send closed letters,” he said stiffly, mulling over how Henry could have known. _The last thing he would have seen, in my hand was—_ The recollection chilled him as it came. _Names, in a stiff, cooling parade. A very long list. How many times did he read it?_  

“And this?” Henry held up a square of thin, smooth vellum, painted on one side. Catching the candlelight, it was nearly translucent, one side showing a slender fine-boned face, half-turned. The faint smile teased. Alert, daring eyes shone brightly. Dark hair framed her face with soft, delicate waves. Captured in an intensely private moment, as she might have been at her dressing table. An icon intended to tempt a man’s spirit, and equally, a faithful reproduction of a natural beauty; one who did not require a flattering light to arrest a man’s attention.

“The Princess Katherine.” As Henry huffed impatiently, Montjoy realized he had misunderstood the question. “Not by my hand,” he clarified, “I do not have such a talent. But I promise the likeness is a good one.”

Henry looked up from the portrait, chuckling to himself.  “A talent you do not possess?” he said with a grin, “How rare. How surprising.”

His mocking tone irked the herald more than he was willing to admit. Henry did not seem to be taking the Queen’s letter seriously, however much she had given to write it. Dry, like a heated pan of salt, and as colorless, he rose to the taunt despite his better judgment. “All that I learnt to draw was the path of roads and rivers,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.

“The shortest roads between all the cities in Normandy perhaps?” Henry had spotted the irritation and he was finding it highly amusing. “I should like such a map.”

_With such a map you would not starve as you moved ten thousand men, horse and cannon from Calais to Rouen to Paris._

“I could make thee a map,” Montjoy responded sharply, “Of all those domains thou has been offered by my liege.”

_All those that have been rejected out of hand, as a beggar’s poor gift to a king. The insult implied._

Henry gave him a shadowed look. Letter and portrait were cast onto the table as he leaned over the corner, drawing closer. “Your king?” he murmured, tone dropping precipitously. His narrowing eyes mirrored the sharpness.

 _A sudden taste of iron from the flesh of a sweet sea fish, as a scale slices the unwary tongue._ Once cut, the diner cannot take another bite. He knows the fear is irrational. Yet, he cannot help himself. Deep midnight was come and gone, and Montjoy was awake as ever. Alert to a feeling of the ground beneath his feet yawing, or yawning, about to swallow him up. Angry as it was, hot as a forging, he held Henry’s gaze directly.

“He knows me not at all,” seethed the King of England. “He understands nothing.”

 _No,_ w _e are not yet treating as equals._

“He thinks the offer generous? It is a bribe for a bawling child, to make it silent.”

 _We are two by chasm-side contending, one with sword and one with bow. Only one reaching._  

“Your majesty,” Montjoy said, inflected. “It is all that his father fought for.”

_It is his true inheritance, offered with both hands to his enemy._

Henry released his anger to surf on the ebbing tide, in and out, never truly going away. “Your king,” he repeated, quieter than expected. “You know him well.”

Montjoy shook his head, denying it. _What do I know of being king? It has driven a good man mad._ Henry offered him both palms upturned in a demanding gesture he did not fully understand. He hesitated. _But madness I know well. It runs in our families._ Henry was neither smiling, which would have warned him off, nor frowning, which might have prompted him to make amends.

“You love him,” Henry said, and it sounded like an accusation. He considered Henry’s expression. Its depths flaring with a lighted glare. Its strange, colored nature, he could only guess at.

_We are the only two struggling to speak in a language of the same things._

“I do.”

“But have you ever fallen asleep in his arms?” _There it is._

“In a way,” he said quietly. _In our own mad way._

*

 _The castle hallways are never truly silent._ Torches crackle and spit in their scones. Somewhere, servants slip by, whispering. A single guard is a host of small human noises, leather scuffing on iron and wood on stone. Without a candle to tell the time, a single moment can be a lifetime of repose. Pause by a slit in the wall, damp to the touch, and breathe deep in the cooling breeze. Listen to the nightjar’s sweet nocturnal calling, far beyond the city limits. Then, startle and stare at the panting, panicking matron as she heaves down the corridor with all the grace of a chest of drawers crashing down the stairs.

“Herald,” she shrieked, frantic, recognizing him as he started violently away from the window.

“Mistress de Losne, please,” he sighed, “Be calm.” There were no cannons at the castle walls, that he knew of. It was barely half an hour since he had ridden in. There was no smoke in the air, no untoward heat. Only a familiar fatigue, gnawing him from within. He put one hand on her arm tentatively to steady her as she swayed, breathing heavily. Her wimple had been knocked sideways and dark hair, undone, curled down one side of her face.

“The king—The king—” She waved wildly down the hallway. If she had come from the king’s chambers, she had run a long way before coming upon him, and found no one willing to help. Now she latched to his arm with desperate strength.

“The king is having a fit?” he surmised. “I shall fetch the physician.”  
“No,” she cried, as he tried to extricate himself from her grip. “La petite reine. Please—do _something._ ”

The little queen? With gradual, helpless inevitability, he sank into understanding. A morass from which there was no escape. “The guards?” he asked, though he knew she would shake her head. _They are not wrong. They are canny, and I am foolish_.  

“Where is the little queen? Why don’t you go in?” he asked them, when he had rushed to the king’s door. _Orders_? The king’s standing orders were not to be disturbed. The flimsiest of excuses. Faced with his even gaze they shrugged and adjusted their belts uncomfortably. _Fear_ , simple. The king had killed three of his own knights that time he frenzied in the Breton forest. What could they accomplish when it was unconscionable to even touch the royal person? Or was it _indifference_? The little queen. The king’s mistress. Beautiful yes, but lowborn, and thus replaceable. They would not risk their lives for her. In the morning, they could pick up the pieces in relative safety.

 _But do you know how he loves her?_ “May I enter?” he asked, disregarding their incredulous looks. He showed them he was unarmed. Resignation brawled with despair, tingling at his fingertips, at the ends of his hair, and he forced it down by the throat. _He cannot be allowed to do something he will regret._

“Go in if you want, Herald,” they laughed. “But do not call for our help if you do. We will not come in after you.”

He charged through the adjoining chambers, fearful, and wincing as furious crashes and bangs filtered through closed doors and painted walls. With his hand on the bedroom door, even as he pushed it open, the realization that he was not prepared to face a frothing red-eyed sovereign turned his blood to ice. He had nothing but his empty hands. His tired, saddleworn spirit balked and hid. By then, it was too late. _Loves her? Love is no match for madness._

She was kneeling on the floor by the fireplace, hunched over, covering her head with her arms. He was drawing an iron from the fire. Both looked around as he barged in. One petite face, tear-streaked and dusted with splinters, clinging to a composure that was crystalline. Bottled fear and roiling panic, one second from cracking. Relief flooded him warmly when he saw her look up. The other in a shadowed soundless fury, free of any remorse or recognition. Lips drawn back in a savage snarl, teeth gleaming amber and ivory, driving the heat from his veins.

“My lady,” the herald whispered, slowly holding out his hands, “Please. Come here.” She shuffled sideways awkwardly, skirts tangling about her knees, and froze as the poker was raised. Her mouth was half-open, in a rictus of inexpressible horror. “Please.” The king’s grim stare snapped up to the sound of his voice, wide-eyed and white around the edges, shot through with crimson. As it rolled off him, gathering momentum, he dived forward with a curse.

She screamed, high and piercing. Before the pain registered, there was a surge of fear, breaking through the ringing in his ears. _Too late?_ The smell of searing flesh made him sick. He had to lean against her, weakly, covering her head with his body. No time to be embarrassed. Her hands were so smooth, so white, where they gripped his arms, supporting him. _Like a doll’s_ , he thought in a dim haze. _Will they shatter when struck?_ _Let’s not find out._ Distantly, he heard a swish as the fire iron swung through the air. _Move. Please move._ Was it only in his mind that he cried out? Agony flared with sudden violence, in a long fiery strip across his back, snapping the world into sharp focus. He spun around and pushed her towards the door. The poker cut down between them, chiming fiercely on the stone floor. “Get out,” he shouted. His voice sounded hoarse. The king turned towards him. Through the arc of his upraised arm, he saw her hesitate at the threshold. “Now!” The hem of her skirt fluttered as she fled, a fleeting white flag. “Please,” he said, to his king.

*

“That is—I woke up in his arms.” Cradled, like a sick child. Cherished, in some meaningful way. _I don’t remember falling asleep._ The king’s expression was sad. There was a faint silver light shining through the windows, casting his tired eyes in shadow. The first light of the dawn. Perhaps now someone else would come. He was all out of breath. _Jacques_ , the king had said, embracing him. The small movement made him gasp in pain. He endeavored to speak, but no sound was forthcoming. Charles put one hand to his lips. _Hush. This is nothing new. Nothing unique. All those of his attendants have stories such as this one._

Henry was grimacing like a man poisoned, venom searing in his veins. “How do you follow a madman?” he muttered under his breath. _How do you love him like you do?_ Montjoy smiled, serenely. “He did not abandon me.” _Does that count for nothing? The least I can do is not abandon him._

*

At midday, when the court adjourned for their meal, he rode into London proper to eat with Giovanni’s delegation in the long dining room of a well-appointed townhouse. They had fish baked in salt and vinegar, soft pale flesh still steaming, and flat unleavened bread, flavored with rosemary and oil. A sweet, rich wine was offered, and refused, to their general amusement. _Piano, piano!_ They advised him. _Take it easy._ He shrugged and drank water from a ceramic cup. _One step at a time. One day at a time._ This day is far from over.

A distinctive flavor on the tongue. A musical language in the air. Had he been transported there, blindfolded, he could have believed it was fair Florence that lay behind the painted walls. Past the blooming garden at the palazzo’s square center, beyond the guarded gate, there could be sun-drenched streets set to the gentle rhythm of streaming fountains and sandaled feet.

_We are in England, foolish herald. Strange and unwelcome. Danger and disgrace. Past time to go home now._

“Five hundred crossbowmen,” he said, and the Milanese messenger nodded casually, unperturbed. Genoa had no shortage of such mercenaries. “Eight carracks, or ten.” A list of numbers was presented. There was no sense of complaint from the gathered, whose mercantile sense was not beneath their masters. Kingless and throneless, the Italian representatives were both less and more than heralds. With their own appointed time in the audience chamber approaching, they were far more eager to discuss the morning’s developments, hunting for a crack through which they could slip their margins.

“What did the young lion think of your offer?” Gian asked, little disguising his curiosity.  
“It was not to his liking.”

_They had not been there, in the throne room, and could not appreciate his black irony._

“Ah ha.” Seated across from the herald, Giovanni was chuckling to himself. “What did I tell you?” He nudged the Venetian seated beside him. “Pay up, _amico mio_.”  
“Please don’t bet on our tragedies, Florentine,” Montjoy said, unamused. He made a disapproving gesture at him, in a reasonably polite variant for the dining table. With a wide grin, Giovanni flipped a single florin through the air towards him.

“ _Ti devo delle scuse_.”  
“Is this an apology or a bribe?” _Is there a difference to you bankers?_

Montjoy caught it with his left hand, and thumbed the fleur-de-lis on the face of it, sighing. _O Fortuna, won’t you glance my way?_ Warm to the touch and slick with oil from Soderini’s palm, someone had cut five small numerals into the skirt of St. John. _XXIII._ Worser still, it was a message. _The Medicis want their fallen pope back. What can I do?_ He caught Giovanni’s eye as he idly tapped the coin against the table. _I can talk at dour Niki until he tires of me, and save Cosimo ten thousand such coins. All in the name of goodwill?_  

“England has a fine opinion of himself.” The Visconti representative frowned at the lapse in conversation. He pushed aside his plate and leaned forward, steepling his fingers in concentration. “Will your king amend the offer to his liking?”  
“Absent the lion’s change of heart? A treaty such as would sate him is unthinkable.”  
“Can a leopard change its spots?” prompted the Venetian with a slight smile, to no one in particular.  
“God only knows,” Montjoy said wistfully. _If he is offered something he truly desires?_

“Delivery by the first sign of spring,” he remarked, adding a rough note to the letter that was unfolded on the table.  
“So soon?” Gian searched his neutral expression closely. “To whom, the command?”  
“The Count of Armagnac.”  
“When will fighting recommence?”

Montjoy shrugged, waving a vague hand over the skeletal remnants of his meal.

“One moment, I shall consult the entrails.”  
“Stick to what you are best at, King of Arms,” Giovanni teased.  
“Give us a guess. After all, we would be your allies.” Gian reached out to tap the edge of the letter.  
“Mensis Iulius?” _The month claimed by Caesar himself. Some kind of omen, but which kind?_  
“Oh? Too soon for resolution at Constance,” said the messenger from Rome, who had hitherto been silent. He was a churchman, unlike the others, and bore a wood and silver crucifix prominently on his chest. For that alone Montjoy was ill-inclined to afford him any favors.  
“They tried and burned the heretic in a week,” Gian pointed out. “They can move as swiftly if they wish.”  
“It took them seven months simply to agree he was a heretic.”  
“And they’ve been there _three_ _years_.”

As they bickered rapidly, each settling into their own dialect, Giovanni pushed his cup across the table to the herald, his smile glowing. After a short pause, Montjoy took a small sip from it. The wine was good. It had certainly come as far as the messengers at the table. The gesture would travel as far back, across the continent, for the satisfaction of Cosimo. _I can barter with the Elector Palatine for the freedom of your mendicant Pontiff, if it may assuage what we stand to lose at Constance._

When they had said their farewells, the Medici messenger caught his arm just inside the doorway, and pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “William promises alliance by August. You would do well to fight before then.” _And win, it goes without saying._ Montjoy dipped his head slightly. “A bold promise,” he murmured back. Giovanni rubbed his thumb and fingers together in question. “How much are you willing to bet against him?” _One as bold as the English king. His master and mine._ The French herald pushed his hand down with a dim smile. “He and I? Everything and nothing in equal measure.”

*

“A letter from the Grand Chamberlain, William de Vienna.” Sealed with a Burgundian coat of arms. _Quarterly, and overall or, a lion armed sable and langued gules. Who decreed that lions must fight, fang and claw?_ He watched as Henry devoured it in a single breath. A short message, and one eliciting a sense of satisfaction from the English king _. Who has sent His angels to let these lions speak? They will consume us to the bone because of it._ He delivered the voice of the Lord Chamberlain, whose pronouncement Henry received with far more interest than any royal treaty.

“When did he give you this?”  
“Friday.”  
“You spun him a tale of woodland robbers, and he believed it?”  
“Why would my Lord Chamberlain require such a tale?”

Henry scrutinized his air of indifference with patent disbelief. “Most men would disdain their abusers. Yet here you are, sealed letter in hand. _Duty in hand_.” He held out the unfolded parchment. “Tell me, Montjoy, if you think these contents should interest your King?”

He cast his speculations into the pond, watching closely for ripples, but the herald only stared at him, like a drifting trout, disinterested in a bait that did not hide the hook it was impaled on.

“I am no spy,” he countered.  
“You are no fool,” said Henry, “capering as the palace burns down.”  
“The Grand Chamberlain is no firestarter. He has two masters, and both are eldest sons of the House of Valois.”  
“And you are the Valois herald.” Henry’s words cast a shadow of an entirely different shape, one that was not lost on him. “Shall I give you my reply?”  
“I will deliver it.”  
“I am no Valois.”

Montjoy hesitated, uncertainty finally flashing by, still surface murmuring. He felt the strain of a tightening net, lashing around, but in the murky weightless world its lines were nigh invisible.

“And I am a firestarter,” Henry grinned.

_I believe it. Have seen it. A gaze of broken flint. A word of sharpened steel. Even the air igniting._

“I—then—“ He shifted uncomfortably. “Do not give me thy reply.”

“Relax, herald,” Henry laughed, tossing the letter to the table top, severity shed in an instant. “I was only teasing.”

Montjoy shook his head, trying to clear it. The sense of vertigo was overwhelming. “ _Henry_ ,” he said, pained. Immediately, as the king smiled, he realized his mistake.

 _A crow following the falcon down its dive, inevitably falling_.

“Sit,” Henry said with a quiet smile. He took up residence in his own hard seat as Montjoy sank onto the nearby bench, and began to write.  

The harried herald writes fast, and simply. He has somewhere to be. The cloister monk writes slow, but each word is immaculate. Each page is devotion intended on high. Henry, head tilted, smile slanted, wrote without pause. _Knowing exactly what he wants, writing decisively for himself._ _Atlas, discovering he can spin the world around._

He was right. With a sickening sensation, Montjoy struck the base iron of the argument as he watched Henry write. _This is a gospel for lions. This is their story._ He was no Valois, and in his hand¸ any number of treasons. In his hands, a quandary. He was wrong. _I am a fool. I have watched palaces burn. People turn. Towers fall. And said nothing._

*

He rode back into Westminster to the chiming of the abbey bells, ringing out the prayer of the Sixth hour. One of the shortest, his brother had once explained, because they liked to nap between Sext and None, to make up for Matins. Like some reclusive Benedictine, he was craving for the same relief. Like some offending Job, there was none in sight for him. 

There was a French messenger, who had waited out in the stables a full hour for his return, springing upon him without warning. He felt a flash of panic as he recognized his fellow. “Word from the king?” he asked, as he dismounted. “Yes, word for you, King of Arms.” The messenger looked around suspiciously before continuing. “He needs you to ride for Hainault.” Off his back came a fresh salt wind; the scent of the sea from a dawn-tide channel crossing, and a thick sense of urgency. “The Dauphin is very sick.” He had a few details, and none of them good.

_What do I know of the Low Countries? I know John of Touraine has spent more years in Hainault than he has in Paris. I know he is a good man. I do not know if he has learnt to be cunning._

There was a tall English knight, with a keen, arch smile, stealing a moment all for himself. Stealing a rough kiss without a hint of remorse for the protest and exasperation. He took the news of the herald’s imminent departure in stride; an honest man used to living in the uncertain present. “Take this.” Robert showed him a small silvered medal, on a leather string, and drew it around his neck, tying a knot that could not be undone. “Christopher watch over you,” he murmured, “May your foolhardy tongue not be your death.” On either cheek, the herald gave him a soft kiss, and then allowed him to take one more, hotly lingering, from his lips. “I’m sorry, Englishman,” he said quietly, “I have no promises for you.” Robert grinned, and shrugged. “You know where I live.”

There was a grinning English herald, taking his arm, deaf to all protests, and a scowling English physician, tearing at his hair in frustration. “What in Christ’s name is this?” A stream of insults flowed freely under the doctor’s breath. “A blind man’s handiwork?” He was one day late to the treatment, and indeed, had not planned to go at all. “Did I say you could take off the sling?” John gave Thomas a wry smile. Montjoy sat where he was told, and tried not to wince when the physician’s hand was cooler and brisker than usual. _There is an explanation you will not believe. One that shimmers mirage-like in the daylight._

“I’m sorry,” he said instead, and gave John a dark look, promising a hopeless retribution. “William had some sort of apology for you,” said the English herald, playing idly with the trailing bandages until his fingers were slapped away. “He has made it,” Montjoy replied. In the morning, with a sincerity not all unbelievable, and yet, with a backwards look as he went. His trust will only go so far as his good sense. _His instincts are right, and all I can do is mislead him. Like a false friend, I delude him._ John was satisfied with a simple explanation. Thomas was not yet satisfied when Henry’s page arrived, freeing the herald from his clutches.  

*

Lost in thought, Montjoy drew in a sharp breath as Henry materialized in front of him, abruptly shattering the reverie. Pain struck down the right side of his chest.

“Tired?” Henry eyed his silent wince. His gaze traveled openly, from bruised cheek to unturned collar, pale linen wrappings peeking, and then to thoroughly cocooned hands, clasped in his lap.

Non-committal, Montjoy shrugged, and exhaled slowly. He wanted to stand up, but Henry had given him no space to. As close as the king was, he could count the stitches in the hem of his shirt. He could see the right sleeve had been rolled up, and the blot of ink smudged across the underside of his wrist. As Henry’s hand came up to brush by his forehead, he shied to one side, narrowly avoiding it.

“Did you not fall asleep in _my_ arms?” Henry asked, soft and upset.

 _Don’t you remember how you reached out, and I couldn’t answer?_ He had stiffened, like a cowering child bracing for a slap, and Henry had sensed it. His hands had withdrawn. When they came back, so tentative, they had only stayed, patiently, on the outside, waiting on a calm that never came. Even so, he had been aching head to toe with the breathless strain of it. With the shame of it. _Did I fall asleep? Or unconscious with the shame of it?_

“I should not have.” He raised his head, because Henry had taken his hand. “Ask me again, if I deny thee.” In the clear light of day, a question correctly phrased, can be answered so simply. “I do.” _Ask me if that is the truth._

If he was to walk out of the room now, he could ride to Southampton by midnight, and be back in France before noon the next day. If not, he had no other plan that could make sense of sheer madness. He could not stand up without pushing Henry out of the way.

“Come with me.”    
“To what end?”  
“Stay one more night. With me. Just one.”  
“Just one?”

The question’s answer was made clear as he looked up, flat and crystalline, a view straight through an icicle, out onto a wintry heatless sun. The cool response did not faze the king. It did not diminish by one degree the warmth in his eyes.

“Just one.”

_We are the only two in an avalanche of snow, losing all feeling. One still in sunlight, one deep, long buried. To dig down is only to lose sight of the sky. Leave the lost to die._

“I cannot,” he breathed out, eyes closing briefly.  
“Because of the Dauphin’s illness?”

His eyes snapped open again, in surprise. Henry showed him a wry smile, seizing some small victory. Hot and cold, they were clashing, and he could feel his temperature rising steadily. The news was still a secret, in Paris, as much as such a thing could be kept secret. But it should not have crossed the channel this swiftly. Perhaps Henry had read it from behind his eyes. A dangerous ability. His smile afforded no such answers. His own blue eyes were inscrutable.

“Great king,” he said, with a hint of formal despair, “May I take my leave?”   
“And if I say No?”

_The Lions pounce, and the Christians forfeit everything. But if they are promised unto the Lord, their hearts are light and empty._

Finally, Montjoy pushed to his feet. Henry did not yield to him, not a single step, so he drew his arms around the king. The embrace left no space between them. Linen and wool and thread of gold nothing more substantial than kindling in a furnace, conducting pure flame from one coal to the next. “Then I shall change your mind,” he murmured, by the king’s ear. _Like a trusted councilor, I try. Like some kind of spy, I try._ “I could try.” _The poorest kind, fatally compromised._ He placed a kiss on Henry’s cheek, whispery and fading, and desperately sad, despite its tenderness. “And I fear I must try.” He touched his lips to Henry’s collar, a reverent caress just shy of the neck, just close enough to tease in passing, to prickle the skin.  

_Dare you say all that you desire is ancient history? It is a lie. I prove it. It is a sham. I see through it._

He was descending, as if through layers of skin, over the shirt gently, piercing through to a molten center and feeling its fierce heat on his face. “Give me a treaty for my liege. Great king.” At the level of the heart, he put his ear to the king’s chest, and fell in time with its swiftly speeding rhythm. “I beg thee. Give me a price for my master.” At the level of the waist, he recovered the hem of Henry’s shirt, its fine detail closer than ever, and lipped at the thick stitching. If he tried, he could break it with his teeth.

Like a blind man, Henry was staring without seeing, and he could not tell if the king was still listening. Or if he was distracted, by linenbound hands coming up behind him, under his shirt, and running up his back, only the fingertips exposed, skin to warm skin. Travel-worn and weathered, smoothing down twitching muscles with the faintest pressure. _Are you still listening?_

“I will give thee—” he said, with a tremble that was not feigned, nor wanted, nor under his control, “ _any_ answer.” With cheek, and lips and tongue, tentative, then bold, then shy, he was making an offer that spoke straight to the blood, straight to the raging heart, and the response from the flesh was overwhelming. _“In exchange.”_

_But if they are promised, they forfeit nothing but blood and body._

Charged like a deep fire blank, drawn from the furnace, moving the streaming air by his own molten surface. It was so obvious, so desperate. But Henry took a step back. Into a cooler stream, defying his aching nature with a grim piercing stare and a hand on the herald’s cheek, directing him. “Montjoy,” he said, “Look at me.” He exhaled with a shudder that shook his entire body. “ _Look at me._ Do you think I cannot see when your eyes are empty?” Like a man digging in his heels before the edge of a precipice, he was quivering in a surge of aimless dissipating energy, and his fingers pressed in a little too hard, making five white indentations onto bruised skin. “Do you think I would ever deal with you like this?”

_If they are promised._

“Have I offered thee something without value?” Montjoy asked, putting his hand over Henry’s. “When I give freely?” _The offer stands. Made in the daylight, it is more real than any moonlit confession. It is more suited to this reality. Blood for blood. Fair trade._ Henry eyed it, and for once, Montjoy saw him hesitate. “When I am willing?” He felt the world pitch, a frail ship heaving in a storm, exchanging sky for sea. Though he was the one on his knees, petitioning, it was Henry, hesitating for the confusion tearing out of his heart, which knew the truth, and the beating blood that would hang it all for sweet resolution. “When I am begging for thy mercy?”

_Is there a world out there where you have already given it?_

Henry took his hand, and pulled him to his feet. “I do not allow you to be like this,” he said, jaw clenched tightly. _Try to pretend this does not hurt you deeply._ “I forbid it.” _Try to pretend you do not love me._

 _Oh?_ A smile flashed onto the herald’s face, brilliant and sad and fleeting. He shrugged with all the nonchalance he could muster over the sharpness suffocating in his chest. _Show me how the lion fasts. Like a martyr. Like a Christian. When it hungers so fiercely._

Henry grimaced in frustration. He took Montjoy’s head in his hands, forcing him to raise his eyes. “Give me back Saturday’s sincerity. Show me again that man singing to his horse one cold winter night. That song is the first real thing he has said to me.”

“That song is a promise made and broken,” he murmured.“One of many.” Somewhere, in the distance, there were bells ringing for sundown service. It was a mournful chiming from the throats of the long dead. “I have one promise left to keep. Just one, and it was made to my liege.”

“You are too much promised to the dead and to the indifferent,” said Henry softly. “They lean on you and rely on you and cumber you until you break and they will never care for how much they weigh.” _How can those with hands long buried let you go? How can they release you when their tongues have rotted away?_ Their lips brushed by, barely touching, but Henry was searching his expression for something more than scent and surficial heat. “I will make _you_ a promise,” Henry said, and upon the sound of his voice a cathedral could be raised. Quiet, like arches in soft canopied shadow, and strong, as they held back the angry sky. “I will never ask you to betray him.”

_Never, only the dead may dream of._

He swept the grey cloak from the cluttered table and it cascaded open to the floor. “You have my leave,” Henry said with a smile, settling it tenderly around the herald’s shoulders. In one hand, he presented his sealed letter. “When you return—stay with me.”

_Eternity, come and gone in an instant._

“Even for just one night— stay with me.”

Despite the thick warmth encircling him from the neck down, he found he was shivering uncontrollably, drowning once more in a heady saltwater storm. He took Henry’s message, and in its place, he put down a square of vellum, folded and pressed thin. “This is a map, such as you desire,” he whispered. A man reciting an unknown prayer, not even knowing the name of the God it beseeched. The square that fitted neatly into the palm of his hand. Like a worn road home, its creases were instinctively familiar, hidden from sight as Henry closed his fingers around it. It was still warm from being carried next to his skin. On the back of it, his fingerprints smudged in charcoal, and a dusting of chalk ground into the seams. On its smooth inner face, river and road, every step counted. City and castle, at the confluence of all things manmade.

_A map by my hand, with a guarantee of precision. With a promise, pure as fine gold and black as betrayal._

Without another word, he bowed and backed swiftly out of the audience chamber, leaving Henry with a wide expansive smile, as he unfolded the map onto the table. 

_Just one promise left. You think you know me. You think you will not even have to ask._

* 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 3


	30. Rose Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm howls down the evergreens.

 

The singular sound that could be heard, over the fire crackling in the hearth, over the draft gusting through the open door, was Henry drawing his sword from its sheath in one lean, deliberate motion.

*

_Maria said. Not to let him raise that blade. Not to let him ride that horse._

From the top of the western battlements, a keen-eyed careful man could see well into his future, or his past. The rising sun laid out a golden snowclad carpet for him, all the way to the horizon. He only had to surmount the undulating hills, all the small travails of a rough road and saddle life. The empty wintered fields, he could amble through. And the dark evergreen forests, shadow under sharp pine and fragrant holly, were his greatest tribulations. Canopy in mystery, daring the man with no torch, with no blade, to take his fate into his own hands. England was more forest than field, more river than lake. If not cloud then fog, if not fog then rain, making his shoulder ache with a dull, distracting pain. The sharp December breeze howled through the narrow embrasure, and eyes watering, Montjoy had to turn away from the view.

 _When the stable door creaked opened, and stayed open, letting in a cooling draft, he irritably called out for it to be closed._ After a moment, it swung shut again. He did not look up from his task. A poor mood had taken hold. He had come home to find his father had not. _Too familiar. Should have expected as much._ Neither had his brother. _That was a surprise._ A betrayal he could not comprehend, let alone condone. It ate away at him until he felt drawn out, spread out too thin over thoughts too thorny to let lie. There was a terse energy in his hands, pulling on the comb and brush. There was little patience. When the stall door clicked open he huffed unhappily and turned around with a terse complaint.

_One rough and rude. One sly and fey. Keep your sons away._

Like a cloying web he shook off the memory, and tried to concentrate. There was a fine knife in his right hand, single-edged and sharpened. In his left, leisurely emerging from its slumber, a lion stretching, yawning, tail tucked, mane unfurling. He detailed four overlarge paws. _The king of animals lacks his usual fearsome mien._ _How will he command them?_ One by one, he put in claws. They did not seem to help. _Fur too soft, fit for a fox. Eyes too kind, uncanny above the long bared fangs._ With a sigh, he set it down into the niche, and considered it against the distant particolored hills.  

 _He was so surprised, he was speechless. So, they stood there in awkward silence for an eternity._ His grimace had frozen Mattheiu at the threshold. Belatedly, he beckoned his half-brother forward. The welcome felt clumsy, and strange. In the close and pungent space, they fenced around each other, around the snorting bulk of his peaceful, oblivious mount. Mattheiu reached out in offering, with a pair of apples, one in each small hand.

_I’m not going home. Not while they are there.  
_ _So never then, Phillippe? Just like that, never? So simple-minded. So stubborn. So stupid._

He considered his little brother, half-brother, who did not even come up to his horse’s shoulder, whose demeanor was calm and purposeful. _Endearing_. _Are you whom I shall exchange blood for blood? Brother for brother? I thought I went out into the world to learn some diplomacy. Some tact. All that I returned with is a hunted, haunted perspective._ With a deliberate shrug, nonchalant, he received one apple and despite not particularly desiring to, took a tactful bite out of it. He watched Mattheiu gingerly hold up the other for wet snuffling attention. In one enormous chomp, it was gone. Grinning hugely, his brother stood up on his toes to pat the horse’s nose. _Maria said. Maria said._ The impulse that made him act was sheer fearless loneliness. He gave up to his horse the rest of his apple, and brushing his hands off, said, “Come on. Let’s go for a ride.”

 _Home is riding to the horizon and back with someone you trust at your side._    
He had taught his brother to ride, and felt the back of Maria’s hand for it.  
 _Home is riding the road blindly, blithely, solely by the feel of your heart.  
_ But while his father was not home, he was the man in the house.

While his brother was not home, he was— “Hiding like a rat in the rafters!” The memory blew away like so much gathered dust as John’s voice blared up the ladder to echo around the small stone alcove. “Too predictable!” The Englishman was panting loudly. It was clear he had taken the stairs without pause. Now he crowded into the space made with just one guard in mind, huffing and blowing and belligerent with his elbows. Somewhat alarmed, Montjoy glanced over the edge of the interior wall to check the courtyard, but as far as was visible from the battlement it was clean-swept; chilly and empty of emergency.

“Hiding?” Montjoy questioned, mildly indignant. He casually shaved a sliver off the lion’s back, deepening its languid arch. “And what of you? Skipping service?”  
“Give me that!” John snatched the knife from his hand. He ceded it without comment. After all, it belonged to the Englishman. “You always come up here when you’re avoiding something.”  
“You are by far the suspicious one.”  
“Moi?”  
“It is Gaudete Sunday and we haven’t gone a single hour west of Westminster. Is Henry holding a Christmas court? Or has your brother disowned you?”  
“He would dare?” John’s huge grin gave him a premonition of disaster. “We leave tomorrow, I promise you. Look there now!”  
“ _Miserere mei_ ,” Montjoy sighed, covering his eyes.  
“Look!” John exclaimed, pulling at his hands.

He ventured a glance out the stone slot along the stroke of the pointed finger, and instantly, his good humor evaporated. “Is that my horse?” he asked, in a whisper like sweetest nightshade. “John?” In the gentle dawn light, her lines were cut from raw crystal. She had a cloaked rider, whose back was turned to the western gate, and dark crestless tack, that did not belong to him. Had he a bow and arrow, like a true castle defender, he might have nocked one then, and drawn back the string.

“ _Explain this_.”  
“Best go after her, ye think?”  
“I want no part of whatever game you are playing,” he said, folding his arms. John shrugged loosely, knowing it would agitate him.  
“Your loss then.”  
“Lend me that knife back.”  
“With that look in your eyes? Not a chance!”

He looked out again, onto the road leading west, hugging the southern bank of the Thames. His mount was by her nature unfriendly, which was his preference, but for the stranger she stood stock still, and gave him no trouble. An uncanny sight, unsettling the herald beneath the skin. The rider was waiting for something. He had a longsword at his hip and a hunting horn hanging from his saddle. His head and face were concealed by a furred hood. Montjoy pulled up the hood on his own cloak as he slid out of the window seat.

“Fine. Coming?”  
“Oh no, I have a service to attend.”  
“Mentor mine, how hast thou betrayed me?”  
“Silly rat, I know best,” said John, glancing with amusement at the half-finished carving being carefully kept away. “I saddled Groundsel for you downstairs.”  
“You know your horse is no match for mine.”  
“And in that respect, horse and rider will be matched.”

John’s bright laugh, echoing down the narrow spiral, was more eerie than comforting. _Out in the sparse wild fields, town mouse knows not where to hide._

*

 _Ten little horses in a solemn line_.  
 _One looks like a pig. One is stiff-legged.  
_ _One stands at the head, saddled in wait.  
_ _Waiting for a rider long since dead._

Lined up on the lid of his father’s coffin, they were, besides the candles stubbed whole onto the ground, the only other things left in the chapel round. He had purged everything else. Not in a fit of rage, like in England, but with composure clean and brittle. Freshwater ice from a season of new winter, heart frozen cold. He gave away every accoutrement, gold or silver, on the strict condition they were never to be seen on the grounds again. The servants, while some were stricken, while some did grieve, stuck fast by the manor, knowing any new owner was likely to retain them out of convenience.

Meanwhile, he sat alone in the emptied chapel, and lit a fresh candle each time one ran out. Under every candle, and there were only four on the ground by the altar’s feet, a small mound of their wholly departed kin had built up. Grimly, he reflected. _Apt as our lives are. Bones under every step. Living on the dead._ Mostly, he stared into the still flames, sheltered as they were, by God’s table, in a windless House. They gave off the faintest smoke, but it still built up, after hours, into dense choking gloom. Some fires had a claim to life, a pretense, if not God-given gift, but these were ancients petrified, dead a thousand years, haunting a spirit with light but no warmth, form but no substance. Ten little wooden figures cast sharp-edged shadows as unmoving.

Phillippe, as he stormed in, made them weave and dance, if only for a few breaths, those few steps. Life forcing into death’s domain, noticeably uneasy. His vacant gaze flickered around, essentially blind, but drawn to the sensation of movement. He said, “Farewell,” without seeing his brother’s face. Phillippe hissed fiercely at it. The true name of misery, since before the need for language. “Come with me.”

_Are we to have an argument? The same one? Like two waves crashing we only envelop each other’s despair. We only double and compound and magnify the tragedy._

“You can read and write in five languages. Speak a dozen more. In the Holy Land, you will be valued.”

Phillippe stared at the coffin, with its bizarre childish ornamentation, thoughts blackly opaque. He wore a quilted vest, and hose with padded knees, as if about to don his plate mail, to ride out onto some battlefield. _Impractical, Phillippe. H_ eavy armor is no good for riding, and the journey by land and sea will take a month, at least. Heavy armor is no good for desert skirmishes, for hand to hand in city streets. _Leave it here, in your empty grave._ The young knight shook himself, head to toe, and spat off to the side.

_Are we to fight again? Like we did once? Like two arms of the same body meeting we only tear apart a shared heart._

“What will you achieve here? Will you clear his name with your last breath?” His voice was ramping swiftly into the low roar he had acquired on campaign, piercing through the screams of the dying. “Who cares? There is no one who cares. Come with me, please.”

“Come with me,” he echoed softly. “I need you. For my last breath. You still have a home here.”  
“Home?”

One hand on either shoulder, Phillippe shook him hard, and he felt the sound of hollowness, of strawmen fluttering in a breeze.

“This cursed house. The old man’s Christ-damned house! Don’t you understand? You are all that’s left.”  
“Won’t you come with me, Phillippe?”

Uttering a curse, his brother began to thrust him away, but then, realizing something very important, hugged him to his chest tightly. Though his eyes were blank and unseeing, he heard the tears as they fell, writing into his brother’s smooth cheek, and his, a last word.

“I will not die for the old man, nor his bastard,” Phillippe whispered harshly.

_What if I could spare you all the hatred in your foundation? He never killed her. She died of illness.  
_ _Or will it bring you all crashing down? If she lost the will to live, it was on us, her absent sons._

“Don’t die. Don’t ever die. Take this.” He pressed the last little horse into his palm. It had not belonged to the procession. _It had been made for thee. The wood remembers the warmth from my hand. It was grown and fallen on our home land._ “Throw it into the sea when you cross. A blessing for good weather—to your good fortune. Farewell, my brother.”     

*

On John’s dependable cob, he chased, knowing it was futile; not pushing the staid brown gelding past its ponderous natural gait. They had not yet gone half a league down the king’s road in tandem, when lead horse and rider veered bravely, unafraid, into wild countryside. Through fields in frozen fallow, pounded awake by coursing iron, releasing a thick earthy scent. Past small mirror ponds, uncracked, untouched, as brilliant as the open sky. The northern wind whistled and whined and pried into his streaming cloak.

The thief rode low, fast and straight. He had a commanding familiarity with the landscape, but every time he got too far ahead, he slowed his pace. He looked behind him, for the chaser. It was a chase the herald might have exulted in, on his own mount, facing a fast friend. As it was, freed to her loping devouring stride, she disappeared over every rise, and as he crested each he would see them in the distance, climbing the next. “Groundsel?” he muttered, the unfamiliar rhythm of hoofbeats setting his teeth on edge. “Ground meat. I’m selling you and your master both to the tanners.”

_One rough and scarred and road-stained. Good for nothing but fighting._

At the edge of Windsor Great Forest, he lost sight of them both as they leapt the high fence into the royal hunting grounds, with a clean elegance that left him unaccountably jealous, and a gasp of relief once they had landed feet first and safe on the other side. He did not dare to try poor Groundsel at the same jump, whose sides were already heaving with exertion of an all-morning run. So they went the long way around, down the line of the fold, through the nearest gate, and then back up along the fence again. He found the sharp prints dug in where she had landed, but from there the trail branched into a dozen narrow forest paths, each one equally trackless to his untrained eye.

_One burned by the sun and bleached in the rain. More foreign than familiar._

He peered into the dense curtain of trunk and bough and bramble. Nothing moved but by the wind. The gentle susurration of the leaves was the soft sigh of a forgotten woodland lord, bound in a moment of absolute quiet, as he comes across a Goddess at her bath. _He is utterly damned, though he has yet to realize it. But he will. Oh, he will, when the prongs prick through his forehead._ And over the clear winter calm, clarion and unmistakable, the cry of a hunting horn. _Come_. It brayed, brazenly. _Here I am._ As he kicked his mount into motion, Montjoy felt sure that, oddly, he had always been expecting it.  

*

He had ridden to Hainault ahead of a storm. All the way, she had free rein. She had her head and ran like a coursing river, boundlessly energetic. He had a new sling, discarded after the second day. He had a grinding pain in his shoulder he was grimly in fear of. He had a numbness in his fingertips. _Record time. Same as the run to Pontheiu._ They were not expecting him. The Duke was away, hunting elk and wolf and wild boar deep in their winter runs. The Prince John of Touraine welcomed him with a warm, sincere smile. His mother-in-law, the Duchess, was shrewder and met him with a frown. _Only bad news travels this swiftly, and arrives this pale._

“The Dauphin is dying.” Like a stitch being ripped, he delivered the news bluntly. 

Shock rippled out over their faces, disturbing calm surfaces, and throwing up as fleeting glimpses, the oceanic depths, the trenches, the truth, for a keen-eyed man to witness. Sorrow, in the brother, though they barely knew each other. Perhaps he remembered a wedding present, given a long time ago, from hand to small hand. Caution, for the mother, and thoughtful calculation. She is _Jean sans Peur_ ’s beloved sister, whose encampment outside the walls of Paris was now in the wind, strident, altering the landscape. There were questions bubbling on her lips, held back by a modicum of decorum. She would wait for the Dauphin-to-be to have the first word. And his beautiful wife, the only child of the Bavarian Duke. Her searing curiosity, carefully concealed behind polite grief. If she had inherited even a fraction of the House of Valois-Burgundy, she would hold her own in Paris. She was clearly not afraid to try. She had to be brave, to be Queen-in-Waiting. 

“I will travel with you,” Prince John said to Montjoy. “We’ll go light and fast. I must speak with my brother. Jacqueline can follow with the household.” The herald made a low bow. John stormed from the room without a backwards glance, drawing up the guards in his wake. He would travel with just sword, horse and six of his closest followers. They made it in time for him to speak to his brother on his deathbed. The Duchess watched him go with just a hint of unease.

“When?” she asked.   
“Within the month, physicians say.” _They say he will not see the new year._  
“So it will be John? Is it certain?”  
“Yes, my lady.”  
“Armagnac?”  
“In Paris.”  
“Berry?”  
“The same.”  
“Bourbon?”  
“The Tower of London.”  
“Of course.”

There was a moment’s pause, as she scrutinized him, and then she nodded, as he passed some unspoken test.

“You will take a letter for me, to the Queen.”  
“At once.”  
“And one to my brother.”  
 _A less appealing prospect._

Reading her dismissal, he bowed and began to back away. The murmured question that followed took him by surprise. “Is Paris safe, herald? For my son-in-law? My daughter?” Suspicion, like a strong perfume, permeated the air. Heady, and irrational.

_Safe? For an honest man? No. Of course not. But was the Dauphin murdered? No. You might keep John safe from the kindred threat in the east, but westwards is a fire and a flood none of us shall easily escape._

“Safe? No.” She pursed her lips in disapproval, and calmly, he met her glare with a small gesture. “But only there shall he have the best vantage for a powerful seat.” _How can he see in all directions, if he has his back to the wall? How can he take charge from this quiet northern province?_

“And you, Valois King of Arms? What can you do for your prince?”  
“He may not know Paris, but he will not be blind or deaf to its dangers. My word on it.”

 _I will defend him. Besides, he is our Prince. He ascends to save us. He must save us._                                                                                                                       

*

Mired in the depths of an ancient ancestral gloom, trees crowding in on all sides, he heard hoofbeats striking the trail long before he saw a shadow of horse or rider. They echoed up and around the moss-covered trunks, like a faerie trick, confusing the senses. He stopped to listen. The rhythm was wrong. Too heavy to be his. An old hunter, perhaps, or a young charger. In the bare flickering shafts that penetrated the canopy, there was a deceptive stillness, a sense of time passing faster than it should, taking on lifetimes that were more meaningful for pine and cedar. The thin deer track he followed forked and merged others constantly, meandering without purpose, more a loose collection of beaten tendrils than a path to and from anywhere with a name in a language of man. After an unknowable amount of time, the sounds stopped, so he pulled up his hood and tried not to lose himself in the woods.

 _Once upon a time._ A hooded man on a tall black horse barred his way. In the unfamiliar forest, he was taking a direct, unsubtle line towards the calling horn, and had been anticipated. _Silent came a stranger._ This rider held a short hunting bow confidently in one hand. No arrow nocked, but a quiver full of straight-edges on his back, and an unornamented sword sheathed in black leather at his side. _Tall, dark and handsome_ , Montjoy thought, slowly sinking, steeped in dismay. In gritty sand and sticky clay, tasted in the back of the throat, cloying, desperate with the need to cough. Beneath a dark cloak, a set of well-fitted hunting leathers, light and flexible. Sensible armor. Expensive, but not extravagantly so. The fierce destrier was his only telltale. It was his one conceit, and as plainly as a coat of arms, it made him. _On a regal wild-eyed stallion. A storm howling down the evergreens. With a name._

“My Lord of Gloucester,” Montjoy offered, letting down his hood. A heartbeat later, Humphrey pushed back his as well.  
“Keen eyes. Well-placed.” His voice was a tensed steel string, humming a deep strummed tone. “But do I know you, trespasser?”

 _A game of words._ Montjoy swept his cloak over one shoulder to reveal the arms embroidered on the front of his coat. _Only an English prince would play it with weapon in hand._ _And then again, only the youngest._

_Don’t you know, wolves should hunt in packs?_

The bland gesture carved two gashes into the handsome prince, one across his smooth brow, crumpling it, and one across his lips, in a sick and ugly grin. With painstaking care, the Duke drew an arrow and fitted it to the bowstring. “This again,” he growled, “This unbelievable arrogance.” Montjoy kept his eyes on Humphrey’s, and tried not to let them stray to the gleaming steel tip. At this range, even an incompetent archer could not miss, and unlike the French court, the English gave away prizes for their archery. “This is Windsor Great Forest. Here there are only hunters and prey.” Humphrey tipped the bow towards him, making his heart skip a beat. “And I am hunting a plague wind. A scavenging raven pecking at the heart of my kingdom.”

 _I hear a howling, so loud and menacing, drowning out the sound of my beating heart._ Tentatively, Montjoy reined Groundsel back a single step. In response, the Duke pulled back the string to his breast. Only half the bow’s draw. A warning. _But while my heart beats, I am still alive. Your first mistake was not shooting me on sight._

“You hunt the western wind. A shadow of wings beating. Nothing real. Nothing justified.”

“My brother’s horn isn’t real? Then what devil lies there blowing it?” Humphrey spat over his shoulder like a superstitious man, though his vehemence was no mere lip service. “He who went barefoot into St. Michael has turned his back on Rose Sunday service. For _you_? For this? Horseshit. This ends. I warned you.” He drew the string back to his ear and clicked his tongue once, alerting his fine warhorse. “Herald of House Valois. Never say I am not an honorable man. Never say I did not give you a chance. Now, _run_.”

*  

_Run! He could have called out. Instead, he watched from the second floor window. In absolute silence, as Louis d’Orleans mounted his horse for the very last time._

He leaned against the balustrade and counted up the bared heads below. Seething to the beat of a lively tune, and dancing, arm in arm, with their brilliant poisoned smiles. Women in silk and silver, wearing their fortunes on their sleeves. Men in velvet and crimson, cheeks flushed and scabbards empty. From his vantage they were little more than dust motes drifting in shallow water, moved by invisible currents. Down there on the polished wood, they were conducting court in many whispers and nods and winks, with a cunning that would not be amiss under the great pillars of St Peter’s, and all the cutthroat mercantile bloodthirst of Bursa’s backalley bazaars. Absorbed in distant observation, he started as a familiar voice hailed him from behind.

“Montjoy King of Arms.”

Montjoy was wearing a valet’s simple uniform, eschewing his formal title. Down on the ballroom floor, it rendered him effectively invisible. Down there, ducking his head subserviently between frilled hem and luxuriously pointed toe, he could have been immersed in the general pattern, cognizant of all its little eddies, its lethal undertows. He could have heard any number of interesting things. What had made him retreat up the unlit stair so early in the night was a nebulous nameless need twisting inside him, a lodged splinter of some craven desire for something resembling solitude.

As effective as a steel-tipped shaft, title and name pinned him up firmly in his place. Just as its speaker had intended. “Seigneur de Saligny,” he responded politely, “I hope you are enjoying the ball.” An impeccably dressed man took a place at the railing, nearly brushing elbows with him. His closeness made Montjoy retreat a half-step, under the guise of a shortened bow.

The courtier glanced out once over the teeming view, then swiftly, dismissed it. Like a storm sleeting out of a blinding sun, his hard gaze came back around, stripping the skin bare. “Hate them,” Lourdin de Saligny said cheerfully. Montjoy did not believe him for an instant. “Look at this lot. Nothing but crooks and thieves. Robbers richer than Midas. Greedier. What hypocrites, eh?” The herald made a noncommittal sound. His last statement had almost sounded sincere. “But you are an honest man, Montjoy. What do you think?” He waved casually towards the crowded floor. His nonchalance did not disguise his purposeful attitude.

_I think only dishonest men need call on the name of honesty._

The musicians had abandoned the cramped balcony, to play in plain view at the other end of the hall. Montjoy wondered if he could be seen from there, through the dim haze wreathing the hanging candles, coating beam and balustrade alike in a soft gritty layer. Very few would think to raise their eyes to the gallery above. He wondered if his lifeless body would be found in a day or more. “I think His Majesty will be very pleased,” he offered. Glancing sidelong, he found Saligny wearing a sharp smile, sharkish, and serpentine. His tongue flicked out over his lips. It seemed to taste the air between them, hunting him in the diffuse shadow by the scent of his sweat. “He will appreciate how many came a long way for his feast of Toussaint.”

The name of the King was an impotent ward in this company, but for a lack of alternative he tried it regardless. He had no doubt Saligny came for him as Orleans’ herald. If their two masters were not contending as they were, in tooth and nail, all spit and sweat and vicious bloodlet, Montjoy might have simply deferred to a request from the shrewd older man. Freely, he would offer a small service, or a valuable tip, rather than attempt to run the wolf, side by side, trying to match him at his own ancient game. With nothing more than his wit and handsome smile, Saligny had carved a path unopposed to the left hand of one of France’s most powerful. He claimed only small holdings and fielded few men. Montjoy had no doubt such an appearance, like his own plain costume, suited the Burgundian’s motives.

Saligny barked out a laugh. “From up here, you’ve been counting us like cattle.” He grinned in a friendly manner, offsetting the accusation. “In shepherd’s dress, with a butcher’s keen eye. May we all pray it passes over us without pausing.”

_In sheepskin, stalking. Cry wolf—howl danger, but who answers?_

“Perchance I can pay the butcher his due.” Saligny palmed him a small, oval token.

As soon as he had it in hand, Montjoy did not have to look at it to know what it was. A flat coin, as thick as two minted livres, and clasped in a smooth silver frame. On its face, a black engraving on white enamel. His fingertips traced the edges of it. A porcupine, so sparingly outlined as to be unrecognizable, except to those who knew what it should be. “How did you get this?" he asked softly.

The Burgundian pursed his lips and made a tutting sound. “Is that how you should receive me?”

 _No—_ Not for a bearer of Louis’ personal favor. Not for this shard of his absolute authority, immediately recognizable to his own, and worth all up to their lives in return. To receive it was to receive the Duke’s immediate command. To have it— to have it was to have exchanged something of immense worth.

“I—”  
“You doubt its provenance? Surely, that would make me a liar?”

_Who is the butcher here?_

He could smell the fresh blood in the air, sweet like new honey and thick like young wine. Suddenly, his breath was coming fast and painful, like a running man nearing the end of his endurance. Entrapment at its finest, in all its vicious splendor, closing around him like a vice.

“No—of course not.”  
“Why so wary, Montjoy?” Saligny remarked. They had both stepped back from the edge, into the paneled wall’s shadow, and above his thin smile Saligny’s eyes were steeply narrowed.  “Do you often get these tokens? Do you find payment punishing?”

The scene over the baluster was breaking down, into color swirling without sound, into strange eerie fury. Near the hall’s teeming center, whose person the herald had been keeping a careful eye on, Louis d’Orleans had his arm around the elegant waist of the Duchess of Burgundy, and was smiling a very particular smile.

“This— his credit, I recognize, and honor,” he conceded, “I am at your service.”  
“Tell me, how is the Queen? She has not been seen for several months now.”  
“The Queen is well. She is resting in preparation for confinement.” Montjoy answered hesitantly, thrown by the casual question.  
“How much longer?”  
“Not long. Perhaps not even till Martinmas.”  
“Where does she rest?”

For several long seconds, Montjoy was silent. The information was not public, but neither was it a well-kept secret. It could be gleaned from any number of sources, for an immaterial price. From a score of bored guards and gossipy maids and kitchen scullions with nothing to do but watch water boil. _Why did it have to be asked of him?_ He locked eyes with the Burgundian lord, and knew he was right to be uneasy. Saligny raised an eyebrow. “Hôtel Barbette,” he said at last, with reluctance. He perceived no sense of satisfaction from the other man. _No triumph. Not yet._ Only his slicing regard, drawing down a soft and unprotected line.

“You know what catches my eye, herald?” Saligny mused quietly, “A man who watches carefully, from a high vantage. Quiet and keen, he does not hide, yet he is hidden. He observes great and small with the same interest. He has an ear to the ground, and hears the herd’s rumblings.” As Montjoy maintained his blank expression, Saligny edged forward, closer than comfort. “Such a man has my _full_ attention. Such a man, I may love, or hate, depending. I should hope he knows when and where to shut his mouth. To avert his eyes and keep his suspicions to himself. I should hope he does not have to be told, or taught.”

“Do you take me for a fool, my Lord?” Montjoy could barely contain his disbelief. It poured out over the skeleton of his voice, coating hoarse bare bones like green moss reclaiming the woodlost. “Bearing my master’s own token, you ask me to betray him?”

“My, the king’s new herald is so clever,” Saligny murmured, raising his hand. “And yet, so naïve.” Montjoy gritted his teeth and clenched his hands and looked out into the distance as the Burgundian lord stroked his cheek, gently, and deliberately. Gloved in smooth leather and warm like raw skin, probing fingertips teased over the surface of his bottom lip, and abruptly pulled his eyes up for the execution. “So young and sweet.” Saligny’s smile opened up as he pushed in, pressing his advantage. “Rumor is, just how the Duke likes it.” A soft sigh, whispering over the herald’s cheek, made his next breath hiss out sharply. “And all his friends too. Look at you _crumbling_. It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Rumor is the wind rustling the trees,” Montjoy retorted. “Not all leaves must fall each time it blows.” He looked into Saligny’s eyes with grim determination. “Rumor is, the double wedding of Burgundy and Bavaria needed just the one nuptial bed.”

_Just rumor, but true, isn’t it? We are all baser than beasts. Softest sable will not suffice to cover our crudeness. Gilded seats cannot uplift our gross humanity._

Saligny’s hand swept up suddenly, and Montjoy managed not to flinch, but he only clapped once, as if delighted. “Look at you. What a good dog! ” he exclaimed. He petted the herald on the head, and Montjoy shied away, swallowing a snarl. “So bright and loyal. Fawning. Learning to heel.”  Theatrically, Saligny made a sign of warding. “What a _damn_ shame. A waste. Your master is a disgrace. A blight on our fair throne. Near him, silver tarnishes. Gold burns black. Women are ruined. Good men broken. Do I speak unfairly? As you are an honest man, now dare say a word in his defense.”

“He is the Duke of Orleans.”  
“My God, are you your father’s son?”

White-lipped, Montjoy pushed past him towards the stairway. He was brought up short by a grip on his arm, informing him, without humor or remorse, that this sleek, impeccably-dressed Lord was steel beneath his smooth unblemished skin.

“You tell Orleans Jean took that trinket off a fat Flanders traitor. And with it? I could have had you for just about anything. Let it remind you how much you have given him. How much service? What do you get in return? Nothing but a slave price to your name. All you are to him is a slave, chained by your circumstance. You owe him nothing.”

“He is the head of House Orleans, and all I am to you is a tool of some fleeting use. Or a hindrance to be removed. I owe _you_ nothing.”

Saligny’s smile grew teeth, flashing white, between reddened lips. _An old wolf, feeling the leap in its gut._

“You know how my Lord Jean _sans Peur_ earned his name?”  
“Nicopolis.”  
“Exactly. It still carries weight in the East. In the right ear, a word of his could make a man.”

 _Or break one._ Montjoy closed his eyes briefly, to the ragged sound of crashing waves. Whether of anger, or despair, they rolled in swollen, white-capped and crashed and crashed.

“You may also know—the Ottomans are a practical lot. Men do not stay at their camps for long. Either, they are ransomed, or—” Saligny shrugged. _An old wolf, knowing the kill as it comes._ “Unlike yours, my Lord is an equitable man. An honest one.”

_It was the prey that never knew it had no chance._

“He would back my brother?”

This time Saligny offered him something far cruder. A palm-sized figurine. Roughly carved wood, unpainted, darkened and smoothed from too much handling. Grime was caked into the eyes, the mane. The ears were worn down to nubs. The wood’s original color showed only on one rear flank, where there was cut in, fresh and deep, a cross of Jerusalem.

“He already has.”

_Two tokens were dropped onto a swaying scale, and it swung. One way or another, the fate of the Duke of Orleans was sealed the night he danced with the Duchess of Burgundy._

*

_Your second mistake was to air the word honor._

Holding the Duke’s gaze, nearly certain his life depended on it, Montjoy dismounted deliberately. The tip of the arrow followed him all the way to the ground. He wrapped the reins around the saddle, and patted John’s horse on the neck, reassuring it with a wordless whisper. “You think I won’t shoot?” The fingers of Humphrey’s left hand were twitching on the bowstring, itching, but his aim was rock steady. “Please don’t shoot Groundsel,” Montjoy sighed. “He isn’t mine.” He waited for the incredulity to wash over the Englishman. Like the tide, the setting sun, it came in just as calculated. “Your own life is forfeit, and you’re worrying about the _horse_?” Humphrey exclaimed.

As soon as the bowstring slackened, Montjoy ran, ducking quickly behind the gelding. It bought him cover enough to get off the path and in amongst the thronging trees, where it was dark, and they were densest. True to his word, as an honorable man, the Duke of Gloucester did not shoot the horse that wasn’t his. With a tap from his heels, Stormus sprang forward, surging into the undergrowth, unimpeded by mere brambles, thundering through the splintering wood, splitting the frozen loam.

The cold air rushed into his lungs, like burning saltwater, like drowning on dry land, but he breathed it in hungrily as he ran. Hugging hard to the backs of trees, he used the sound of pounding hooves to keep the trunks between him and the long goose-fletched shafts. They hissed with incredible noise. Even louder than the stallion crashing through the brush, he heard every one as it went by, and counted. Their howling cry. _One_. A rushed shot as he disappeared from sight. _Two._ Sinking into a tree with a decided thunk. Getting closer, the guesses less wild. The gap shrinking. _Hunting_ now, with poised and princely expertise, secure in his superior speed. He realized he would not lose the young Duke. Humphrey was herding him towards the meadow, into thinning cover. His shoulder was bleating with a pain set inside the bone, and he gripped it tightly as he ran. _Three._ It sliced past his arm, and kept going, biting into the ground as he lunged in desperation. For a single moment, he had been in clear sight. His breath caught. He missed a beat, and paid for it in painful coughing heaves. Now he was bleeding, and could not hope to hide. The next would pass through his shadow, or his heart. He had to take a chance in the trees.

He dared a glance behind him. The chasing horse was a dark surging blot, bisected by spindly evergreen branches as it circled boldly around on an angle that would put clean sunlight between them, out of a cloudless winter sky, perfect for sighting from man to shaft. Taking a guess, holding his breath, he dived to the ground when he thought he was out of sight, and started crawling. Cheek to the cool soil, the trembling earth told him where he needed to be. Eyes on his gloved hands, telling himself they were enough. He reached the needle strewn base of a wide elder pine as the storm thrashed its way towards him, and held his breath.                                    

Hunting with bow and horse is hard. Even on the wide open steppes. Let alone Windsor Great Forest. One arm to draw, strenuous even for a strong man. One arm to aim, through all the shifting shadows, in the deep green haze. And a thunderbolt between the legs, steered only by the knees. Only to be conceived by a master archer, which Humphrey could claim to be, in a moment of conceit. Only to be dared by a master horseman, which Humphrey was, and even then, with one glaring weakness.

_Your final mistake was taking a warhorse to the hunt._

As the black charger came tearing past his hiding spot, he reared up from a crouch, grabbed Humphrey, arm and cloak, and wrenched him backwards, throwing all of his bodyweight against the momentum of the purebred war-trained stallion. Out of his light hunting saddle, Humphrey fell hard, arms flailing. Not waiting to watch him land, Montjoy broke into a flat sprint in the destrier’s wake. Stormus was ploughing gamely forward, just as its training demanded. The loss of one rider did not deter it in the slightest. The gain of another, who leapt for the saddle as if his life depended on it, did not slow it down. Then, with some expertise, Montjoy pushed off the ground sailing past and swung himself into the recently vacated seat.

*

Out in the meadow, Henry had pushed back his hood, and the cool wind sweeping down the lonely space teased up the ends of his disheveled hair. While he sat on the dark bay mare, back straight and shoulders squared, she might as well have been worth a thousand pounds. She might as well have been a pure bred princess from a three hundred year House, its flawless centennial bloom. Stilled, as calm fresh water, fringes eddying. It seemed impossible they had both come two hours, and ten leagues, Westminster to Windsor, at a blistering herald’s pace. Rich, like rare pigment, against a pale burned sky. It was impossible that one or the other should belong to him. _The lord must run. She is Goddess of the Hunt. Too late. The stag will run. It cannot speak her name for mercy’s sake._ Henry grinned into the teeth of the wintry breeze. He had heard hoofbeats coming from the treeline. 

“A trade, perchance,” called Montjoy, who had wrapped his cloak tightly around him, and pulled his hood down over his eyes. “Two horses for thy one.” He had doubled back and retrieved Groundsel, still in the same place, reins neatly waiting. The offer confused Henry, which made him smile wanly.

“This horse—?” Henry dismounted to circle the warhorse and squint at its tack.  
“A fine deal, if I may say so.” A fierce glare from the king, his suspicion igniting, bathed Montjoy in its stark light, but ten leagues and ten heart-pounding minutes hence he was ready to be difficult. He was ready to infuriate.  
“Where did you get it?”  
“I found him wandering in the woods. Where did you get yours?”  
“I won her on the battlefield,” said Henry, with a brilliant smile.  
“She is no trophy.”  
“What is she?”  
“She is mine, _lleidr meirch_.”  
“Your pronunciation needs work,” Henry laughed, intensely delighted at the outcome of his own scheme, infectious enough to provoke a fleeting smile in answer.

Then, the wind, mischievous as ever, tugged away at their cloaks, and Henry saw the blood soaking down his arm. “Blood,” he said, as if to delineate reality, doubting his own eyes if only by the entirely innocuous way Montjoy had approached. He grabbed Montjoy’s wrist when the herald tried to hide the injury. “ _Stormus_ ,” Henry said, in the proper Welsh, after one more look at the stallion. The conclusion he came to rolled in over his face like darkness at midday, like a swift spring storm over swollen riverbanks, all rushing water, waist and shoulder, numbed skin and force without feeling. Stormus stirred aggressively, perhaps recognizing his name, or more likely, sensing his rider tensing for a fight. He would bite, if they struggled, or kick, or throw his weight like a battering ram in a melee of reeds, utterly designed to dominate. Montjoy started to dismount, before the destrier could revolt. As he swung his weight off the side of the saddle he had a moment of complete blindness. _White not black, like Icarus staring into the sun._ He had a moment of deafening silence, and inexplicable weightlessness. _Then black, as he fell without warning._   

*

The storm was blowing in. In words. In English. In howling English.

“By what damned right?”  
“Plainly I see an enemy! What is it you see I wonder?”

Storm to the biding sky. Lightning fury, flashing past the eyes, lighting up the skull from the inside.

“Blind _and_ deaf!”  
“ _I_ am blind?”

Sky to the tempest swell. Vast patience, waning fast, and beyond the thinning firmament, an inferno sun, incandescent with rage.

“Oh no, you see so clearly. Spying on me. Your king.”  
“My _king?_ My brother? Playing the fool with a fox-sly Frenchman?”

When he moved his hand, inquisitively, it sank into the pile of pelts underneath him. Creatures enough to pay for the forests they were hunted in. Luxuriantly soft, and deliciously warm, he felt fur surround his bare skin. Neck to waist, he had been stripped. There was something wound tightly around his bleeding arm, echoing every throbbing heartbeat. And all around, the storm was blowing. 

“Go, take your sword to Margaret. You never understood that either.”  
“I understand!”  
“You will not understand, my brother, until you have tasted this poison you speak of. You cannot understand. But like a child, you must insist you do. Like a child with a sword edge, hurting everyone around you. This is my final word. Swear to me.”  
“And this is mine. Give him to me.”

_Youngest of four brothers. The crimson horse. All the martial lustre of Henry Bolingbroke. All the handsome glamor, without the tactical cunning, the common sense, the flexible practicality._

The singular sound that could be heard, over the fire crackling in the hearth, over the draft gusting through the open door, was Henry drawing his sword from its sheath in one lean, deliberate motion.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	31. The Very First Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In All of His Creation.

 

He came to the sweet smell of burning wood, recalling dimly, a campfire at the end of a long day. Under a lonely moon. The night pressing in, close and stifling. The lifeless air lying heavy on saddle-scratched skin. Beyond the wreath of brazen firelight, fields, forests, receding; black infinity, raw and solitary. His horse dozing on her feet. His tired eyes closing without warning. No sign of man, for miles around. Except for their footprints. The tongue stills, forgetting its purpose. The heart slows, dropping every other beat. The sifting smoke rises, lazy and sweet, taking a wish without a voice up to a silent sky. _As far as your heart can seek, the world can expand in its emptiness. Neither limited, neither sympathetic._

He opened his eyes to dim amber firelight. To the hunting hall's high roof, raised in hatched wooden beams. To its long, narrow walls, hung with staring, crystal-eyed trophies. There was a fire roaring in the stone hearth. The central pit was filled with glowing embers, baking the room dry. The trestle tables had been dragged against the far wall and stacked with benches. Their blunt feet left tracks on the bare planked floor.

He blinked, trying to recall his own name. In the broad shadow of an Englishman's back, he was being sheltered. _Sword fiercely bared._ There was a grand Plantagenet King in grey and silver, casting a shadow as long as an evening pine. _Feet firmly spread._ Even half-roused, he felt the storm crackle over his bare skin, and tried to remember what he should be. What he was.

_I just want you to know. You are not alone in this world._

Shedding skins of wool and white fur, Montjoy lurched to his feet, like a changeling at dawn, stripped and raw, cognizant of the world too bright and too fast. A single wrong turn on the back of the black horse had taken his head off, and what had risen in its place was of dense golem make, all ash and stinging sand, fogged stone eyes and stiff stone limbs. " _Ne fais pas ça_ ," he coughed up the taste of frozen soil. " _C'est votre frère_." His hoarse burning throat told him he had been out for some time. There was just a handful of scant, scattering seconds to make sense of a senseless situation.

Henry had drawn his sword into a low guard, just below the waist. _Alber huten._ He put a name to it. _Fool's guard. Fool's gambit, inviting the inexperienced directly to their demise._ It held an unforgiving line between the herald and his brother. It cracked the earth beneath them into two steep banks, and down the rocky bed of it flowed a damning silver Rubicon. "He is my loyal Gloucester," Henry said, flashing the silver edge with a flick of his wrist. His grim gaze holding steady, never leaving his brother's face. _Golems and gargoyles. Arms of stone. Eyes of blue fire._ Humphrey hesitated, resolve wavering, just for the sake of his brother. Hatred balking, at the sound of his name, spoken in anger.

But half-roused, and careless by it, Montjoy made a mistake. Over the brink of steel, he caught the eye of the Duke of Gloucester. _These princes. These warlords. Those that have hearts-soon learn to armor them._ Like a Gorgon, turning his face to raw stone. _Like dismounted knights, they only know to fight forwards, holding fast to the ground beneath their feet, never giving in._ Petrifying him into veined marble. Into granite, cold, pale and certain. _Deep in enemy ranks, they will smash the forward line. They will break it, or die trying._

His heart sank as Humphrey drew his own sword, and tossed the sheath away. _Too late. My mistake. Mine._ "He is your brother," he pleaded, nearly mute, not knowing which Plantagenet he appealed to, nor how to speak to either one. _Don't cross. The cost will surprise you._ He reached out for Henry's arm.

Blade leading, Humphrey lunged for him, tip aimed for the throat.

As foible crossed over and kept on, Henry swept up his brother's sword with his own, engaging the leading edge on the forte in a shriek of steel on steel, forcing it up and over. _Fool's gambit succeeding_. He bound into the superior position, exposing the lethal weaknesses, the soft gut, the wrists, the upper legs. Instead, chopping down bluntly, blade on blade like maces, artless, brutal. Beating the advance away with a distinct lack of patience. Hilt ringing in his hands, sword pealing like a chime, Humphrey gave him ground, not backwards but around.

They pivoted about the herald, who had frozen rigidly in place. Like celestial bodies confined to singing Ptolemaic rings, matching hour for hour, day for day, fencing in step, always testing the tense net of the air. Surprise expended, Humphrey pushed forward, bullying for space, faster, fiercer. Pommel to cross-guard, Henry shoved back, just as hard.

"Dare you bare your blade, brother?" he growled, dark with emotion, roaring with betrayal. "And before me, bear it? What manner of Duke is this? Art thou truly one of mine?"

Huffing, narrow-eyed, turned dangerously careless, Humphrey swung hard for his brother, and Henry parried him, and parried, and together they played a crashing chorus of single notes, of clashing, flashing metal, screeching as they found each other, separating only when rung aloud.

Henry wore no armor, just his comfortable riding attire. Humphrey's light leather would stop shy a glancing blow. In the torn-up firelight, Montjoy faltered, struggling to think faster. The smoky light was too painful to behold, the sounds too sharp too think through. There was a distinct smell of blood coming off his bared skin, skimming the surface of the woodsmoke like oil-slicked water.

At the far end of the hall, the door was still cracked into a wan afternoon glow. Fifty steps away, if that many, beckoning freely. _Might make it, as they crash against each other. As the blood chafes hotly against the skin, neither can now relent, else forfeit the entirety of a brilliantly burning spirit._ He had once fenced his own brother. He had fought him in anger, once, and knew keenly the feeling of one from the other. _That cold feeling as the fight turns ugly._

"This one is _mine_ ," Henry snarled, in amongst the breaths whistling through tightly clenched teeth, "Dare you fight me for him?"

Abruptly, Humphrey broke off. Into the silence laid sharply by all the shards of their steel, screaming. Montjoy saw in his shaken expression that the Duke had felt it. That cooling breeze as something once held immutable sublimates all in an instant. In the resulting emptiness, the wind of its passing plays a thin and forlorn reed. Fleetingly, he had touched the bleak midwinter, and shadow moved across his face as he chose to stand his ground, to whisper bravely, "I dare." Vehemently into the yawning void, his determination, "For I am one of thy own."

His blade lanced forward, laying down a sunlit claim to the universe's center. Backed up against a bed of hot embers, Montjoy faced down the pound of tempered steel intended for his heart.

Henry slashed it away on the downswing of an arc that glanced violently off the floorboards. _He is angry now._ He couldn't see Henry's face, but he could tell. _Patience snapping, sharp and sour. He hates how you abuse him._ Another bold step forward from the youngest prince, shouldering into Henry's space with determination. That one has figured it out, finally. How to break the bloodless defense. Only a matter of time, for such an accomplished fighter. _Don't you know every stroke you've made has drawn his blood?_ How to take advantage. _It only took this long because you fight fairly._ As brother jostled brother in a poor inverted hug, the steel swept around again, to be deflected again, with a roar of flaring frustration.

 _Angry now. Furious. So am I._ _He does not know how to make you stop. But I know. Blood and fire. I know. Altar and pyre. Plantagenet princes. So proud and presuming. Even if I do not deserve your respect, surely your King does. Surely your brother does._

And the sword came for him, as Humphrey forced in next to Henry, arm against arm, into the intimate space where they must brawl or die. _Knowing Henry, making him choose._ Their edges just barely kissing as they slid over one another soundlessly. Just as he had predicted, Henry dropped the guard before he would impale himself on it, and straight past his brother, Humphrey came for him, blade leading, teeth bared, blood and hackles up in arms. _Thinking me caught. Knowing me not at all._

He gave ground to the thrust, a quick sidestep, turning into it just enough to strike the flat with his left palm. As it deflected, draining all of its forward momentum, forcing Humphrey to reverse the stroke. _The straight-edge. Sincere. Appealing. Free of deception. More genuine than the father._ He was a fine swordsman, and it showed, as the turn and backswing came about on the instant. _A bold style, backed by true strength. It will win you your duels. That is, up until the first crooked contender. The father knew better._ For a moment, the blade was stalled, was slowing, then, stationary. In that moment Montjoy hooked his right elbow over it and seized it in the crook of his arm. A hard twist clockwise, against the grain, ripped it out of Humphrey's grip. He let it slide out of his arms to the ground as he pushed roughly past Henry. "Come on, Englishman," he said, quiet, taunting. " _Come_." The reaction scorched him raw.

_This is how we fight in the streets. In the wild woods. This is how we fight for our lives, we who are worth so little._

Humphrey drew and lunged in a single smooth thrust. Sure, and swift, and decisive. _Except you are a prince of England’s own._ He barely dodged it. The long knife slashed past his neck, opening a slit out of which poured a freely flowing rill of blood, but it had not killed him dead, and that was enough.

_Except I learnt from a fencing master with a collar all trimmed in gold._

Gripping the wrist now reaching, now out of position, he pivoted on his heel, propped Humphrey’s arm over a shoulder, and threw him effortlessly in the line of his own momentum straight to the ground.  Humphrey hit the hard planks with a wordless gasp, losing the air from his lungs. In the meantime, with all the efficiency of a routine robbery, the knife had changed hands. _Never say I did not give you a chance._ Montjoy planted a knee into his shoulder, and held the edge to his throat, sounding strangely sad, as he said, “You are a great Duke of England, my Lord. Fighting hand to knife demeans you.”

" _Montjoy_ -" Henry began, but his voice bled away.

"See this, your herald," Humphrey snarled impotently. "He can _fight_. Unarmed _._ He can steal a man's horse out from under him. What manner of herald is he? Is he truly one of yours?"

Slowly, Montjoy smiled. A slim shadow of a smile, the dark nimbus of an eclipsed sun. Its pale lucid glare would blind those foolish enough to stare. Wistfully, he remembered, "King Richard gave his young bride a beautiful dress, on their wedding day." He stood up to offer the knife to Henry, with both hands. "Purple silk. Hand-picked pearls. Fur of sable," he said, picturing it clearly. _Henry would have been there, and seen it._

Blade and hilt were liberally coated in blood. _Blood. The sound of the word as it falls from Henry's lips. The color of it in the flickering amber light. Blood begets blood._ He finally noticed the cut in his left hand, right across the fingers and palm, deep enough that the wound gaped open. That sword had been freshly sharpened. It felt just a little unfair. Just a little too much to handle. Finally, he felt the electric pain connect itself to his waking mind.

"The next French princess will need a suit of armor to her name," he said in an enervated whisper, and felt fiercely like crying.

" _Henry_ ," Humphrey said, expectantly.

"Shall I tell thee of a tragedy?" Montjoy continued, soft and sad, now lost to the surf of a distantly ebbing tide that had not crashed but finally eroded through its ancient confines.

Henry tossed the knife away. Somewhere on the far side of the embers, it clattered as it fell. Blank-faced, he ignored both appeals, and took Montjoy's wrists firmly, soaking up the spreading blood into his sleeves.

"Of a great Lord of England? A _traitor_ and a fool?" As his voice twisted over the word, Henry looked up with a suddenness that struck him like another stab wound. _A wound of mine to match thine._ _A weakness in the eyes, through which I can see your sad soul shining._ "A traitor with everything to lose and nothing to gain. A betrayal out of the clear blue sky."

" _Whose_ tragedy _?_ " Henry whispered, his fingers tightening whitely over skin made slick and slippery as Montjoy tried to work his hands free. " _Tell me._ "

Fresh blood welled up and pooled in shallow cupped palms. _Cut_ , like ancient ritual, and _offered_ ; bright, thick and oily. _Rowan and holly. Man once made his sacrament down. Down to the dark soil of the land of his birth. Blood and earth. Down to gods of an older faith. Down, not up._ Too late, Montjoy remembering why, regretted what he had started to say. _One night in Southampton, I buried it._ One night at the Red Lion, he had bitten his tongue and named the wolf. _Ysengrim, who would kill for you._ By candlelight, the whisper is a specter. By firelight the specter comes in steel. _Down, not up. Up to a heavenly kingdom we do not deserve._ He had cracked into a cairn and found the unshriven dead writhing restless. This time, they are embodied. This time, too late to be buried. _I buried it for the sake of you._

"We drank at the coronation of Henry Bolingbroke," he said, turning a cheek to Henry's bruising regard _._ "To peace in our time. Between our two thrones." Humphrey scoffed loudly, and Henry sent him a single glance that pressed his lips flat. _All tragedies come in cycles. Sons return for their fathers' swords. Fathers return for their sons' bodies. "_ Three months later, we drank to his blood-drenched Epiphany." _We thought ourselves safe, as English lords lost their heads like dandelions bending in the summer breeze, but the tragedy came around to us again._ "A familiar story. Three Earls forsworn at Windsor castle." He raised his head and at the sight of Henry's expression, shied roughly away from the truth. "It might have been four. There was one more conspirator."

"York saved my father."

"So he did-at the end of it all. _et ergo finitum_." _And therefore, the tragic end._ Either, he saw the inevitable outcome, else he engendered it. One way or the other, he fed his fellow traitors straight into the waiting arms of Bolingbroke, and the axe was not long after. "Fifteen years hence, his own brother is forsworn at Southampton."

"Speak a finer word of York, Valois." He heard threat sharpening, as Henry's voice lowered, as his face darkened in warning. "He died in the van at Agincourt," Henry chided him, but the herald was not impressed. _So what? He was one amongst our many thousands._  

 _"_ Not a single word more, _je promets._ " He shook his head tiredly, falling silent. But blood was draining from Henry's face, as if straining through some witchcraft into Montjoy's open hands, until he was pale, and corpse-cold, came revelation clawing from the cairn. _Should that demon tell of a soul so easy?_

"He said nothing. Even unto the very end, he had nothing to say to me."

_Should such a tale be told; Another fall of man? Not another word._

He was still shaking his head mutely, not out of fear but from some aching impulse, in sympathy's sharp raw shadow, and Henry could barely be recognized as a living thing, not made of wax, awaiting the fire, not made of gaunt stone, freshly carved from the face of the seam.

_He was dragged from Watergate to Northgate. The only one of three. Who ordered it? Was it thee?_

"Christ and the Cross," Humphrey exclaimed, belying the fact that he too was paling as the insinuation sank in. "Fain thou grants his serpent's tongue too much credit. He turns us on each other, and by his own admission drinks to our self- destruction." He took a step forward, but froze at the sight of Henry's expression. "He reads thy weakness like a recipe," he said with a grimace, "and mixes a poison just for thee."

_He was so contemptuous of his fellows, when he thought no one was looking._

Montjoy shook his trembling hands free of Henry's petrified grasp. _All tragedies tell the same story, and we in it are merely players, meeting our exits._ Blood speckled the floor with a pattern that was strangely appealing. Gingerly, he touched his neck where he thought the dagger had broken skin, but realized, belatedly, there was no feeling in his fingers. As the coiled pain unwound all in a brusque crashing instant, he sank to his haunches, then his knees.

"All our lives for thee," he said, stumbling over the last quiet sound. "Throne and state at thy soft mercy. What of those of us, moths to a Plantagenet flame? Nothing but smoke and ash. Nothing but fuel for your brilliance." He turned to Henry with a smile as ephemeral as soft, immolating wings. "At least it shall burn brightly." _At least it is so beautiful._

As well as he knew his brother, as Henry looked up from the herald towards him, Humphrey knew a single step in the wrong direction at that singular moment would be the end of all they were to each other. Henry's eyes were wholly blank. Humphrey held up his empty hands in a gesture as much of confusion as of appeasement. "Does a man earn your sympathy so simply, Henry? With homage so sweet and poisoned?"

"Come here, Humphrey," Henry whispered, beckoning his brother forward. He pressed his sword into Humphrey's hand, and nodded towards the herald. He had not moved, but he had bowed his head and wrapped his arms around himself, eyes closing, gently swaying in a slowly spreading pool. Kneeling at the gory center of a smudged and arcane seal, writ in fresh blood, beckoning to the sacrificial blade. Humphrey glanced from one to the other, fighting the strange sense that his soul was at stake. _Fighting, unarmed_. _Stealing a man's horse. Speaking in a storm. Standing in royal company._ But at the end of the day, all things done and said, these were still true scions of House Plantagenet, deep in the fastness of Windsor great forest. "How dost thou think of Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham?"

 _And to cut him down now would be just as good as an admission to high treason. God damn it._  

Humphrey sank to one knee, and set the sword down at Henry's feet. "He was a traitor," he vowed. "Henry, he was a traitor as arrant as any. There was no conspiracy."

"Oh?" Henry sighed, and briefly laid his hand on Humphrey's bowed head. "Those that are mine, of just one I am now certain, and there he is."

"Your heart doubts us, all for the sake of a damned Judas." Humphrey held his brother's stare, and his breath, with a soaring judgmental dismay. "Your heart will lead you into folly." He stormed off in bad grace before he could be dismissed, slamming the door behind him.

"Tell me," Henry murmured, wrapping his arms around the herald, "You made it all up."

He did not open his eyes as the whisper came to his ear, as the weight of his slumping head was taken onto a steady shoulder. "It was all made up," he murmured. He heard, hot and hoarse and blowing, the desert wind crying past his ear, carrying along all the lost, sand-scorched souls.

"Don't _lie_ to me _._ "

"It was all a lie," he said, returning the embrace tightly. _Don't cry._

*

_"I've never seen someone take a bath with all his clothes on before."_

Hands on her hips, she considered him, a faint smile playing about her lips.

The water from the rain barrel was freezing cold. He was dimly aware his teeth were chattering. And coming upon him like a shooting star, from an even greater distance, the revelation that she was speaking to him. Some response was required, _right?_ In situations like this? The question seemed to echo around an immensely empty expanse. Perhaps, given time, she would go away. Like all earthly problems. From far enough, they were inconsequential at last. "Ysabel," he whispered, and shook his head roughly, sending icy droplets flying. _Not now. Not right now please._ It was hard to press the syllables through his mouth, lips and tongue rebelling. If she noticed the stains on his sleeves, the fingers scrubbed raw, on his knees, washed up to the ankles in rust-red, she said nothing.

"Herald?" The frozen silence lingered, as his gaze drifted away. Finally, taking pity on him, she took him by the hand and led him, dripping wet, into the kitchens. He followed obediently, lacking motive, and was deposited in front of the fire. A rough blanket landed around his shoulders. It was made of sackcloth, and smelled like dust and flour. The table before him told him what the household had eaten for supper, and what the Duke had. Abruptly he choked down a desperate desire to throw up.

She must have seen him shudder. "Your hair is all white," she teased, and tried to rustle the flour out of it. "Your face is pale. Did you eat?" By now she knew what the quiet new herald usually ate when he stayed, which was anything she fed him, and the hard supplies he requested when he rode out. Bread with crusts that could break the teeth of a gnawing rat. White cheese, brown onions and green leeks. And when she stashed the odd sweet, he would remember, even in a week, even after she had forgotten, to thank her for it.

"Try this." She put a bowl in front of him, and stared hard, until he begrudgingly picked up the spoon. Strange, the way he held it between the tips of two fingers, as if it would burn, she had never seen him eat like that before. "New recipe. This Navarran taught me, in the market." She felt the distinct need to chatter, as if it could defy the gentle petrification. "At least, maybe it is. What he intended. His accent- well, _you_ should have been there, I suppose. Good prices though." It was like waving a torch into a cavernous gloom, not knowing how far it extended, and hoping that somehow, the sparks glimpsed sailing airborne were enough to relight the stars. "You have family from there, don't you? What do you think? Too rich? Too sweet?" At the very least, he appeared to be eating.

"Hey, it's not _that_ bad," she said gently, sliding an arm into his, "Don't cry."

*

_It is dawn, of a Sunday._

Through the glazed panes comes a fresh crystalline light, promising bright sky, from a blessed sun, just as He made them. It colors the heavy gloom rose and gold and viridian. It settles on strong curves, on tanned skin and old scars. On hands still holding on forlornly. Fingers strong and weak, thick and thin, weaving together fills the gaps in between each.

As the light weighs on the sleepers, they stir, eyelids flickering. The thick sheets tangled about their waists shift and slither with a furtive serpentine whisper. They had clawed their way out, gasping for breath. True twins, born in the same instant, emerging from a single cocoon into a hushed darkness. As the light falls on their faces, they learn how to see for the first time.

*

When Henry finally stirred, he found that blood had glued his hands to the back of his shirt, and winced as he peeled them off, one after the other, with a sticky tearing sound. The effort made him incredibly tired. They were content to be silent. Henry half-carried, half-fought him back into the chair, and held him down there until he was certain he had made his point. Into red-rimmed eyes, Montjoy looked up tentatively. Onto red-washed hands, Henry looked down, and then disappeared through the servant door.

He had clambered up onto unsteady feet, and inched along the wall bleary-eyed half-way to the far door, when Henry stormed back in with his hands full and his face wreathed with solemn disapproval. Like drowning men they fought against each other, and the tide, turgid, thickly, in a silence that was binding, like breathing of the deep ocean, until he had been wrestled back every step he had taken, and exhausted, simply sat where he was put, on the ground before the fire.

Henry washed his hand and neck clean with a wetted cloth, and coated the wounds liberally from a squat pot, using a long wooden spoon. For tasting, he guessed from the shape, straight from the kitchens. Sweet golden honey, he thought he recognized, prescribed and applied with some confidence. Hesitantly, while Henry was distracted setting pot and spoon aside, he raised a set of sticky fingers to the tip of his tongue and tasted it, to be certain. The next breath was stolen, the next thought muted, as Henry swooped in while he was distracted, and kissed him in urgency.

*

 _On the seventh, He rested. And so, made that day Holy_ .

As the light touches his brow, he opens his eyes. He cannot help but feel the weight lies in judgment. He cannot breathe but for the smell of warm skin. He cannot think but for the touch of it over him. All of a sudden his skin shrinks in terror. His shoulders tighten. His throat closes and his fingers twitch. The spasm of panic passes, but in its shuddering, the earth sunders.

Into hot mountain springs, clear and bubbling, mineral-colored. Aquamarine, like the submerged sky of an upended world. Knowing, and sad. Warm, and comforting. Into seams of marble and gold. The one for sculpting, the other for gilding. Into a silence that held on for the fear of letting the day go.

_Thus, in all of His Creation, the very first thing that was made Holy was this day._

_It was a Sunday._

*

_It is a Sunday._

The rich taste of honey, sweet and sticky. Most men use it to sweeten wine and porridge. The Ashkenazim use it to sweeten the New Year. _Oh, Hast thou gone hungry, these many weeks? Feels like hunger. Tastes like isolation._ After all, it was promised to them, through Moses, through Joshua, and Caleb. Like manna sailing out of a burnished desert sky, passed lip to lip and tongue to tongue. Soft sweetness, struggling to slake all of the gathered sorrow. A promise foretold. _Hast thou felt alone, thy King amongst men? Canst thou not turn stone to bread?_ Here is for thine comfort, like a child's remedy, tempering the bitterness. When the sweetness is all gone, we will make our own. We shall distill it out of pure heartache. _Remember, for all of thine promises to me, I never once promised thee._

He closed his eyes, and kissed back, but only for an instant, only until the flavor of honey had been consumed by surging heat, and the devouring salt sea, and then, using his wrists, the back of his hands, he carefully pushed Henry away. Henry said nothing, as if nothing had happened. He knotted the bandage at the wrist, and then, leaning forward, while their breaths mingled, while their skin spoke, wrapped up his neck in a smooth white collar. _Henry._ Loose lines of linen snaking through his fingers. A downcast to his tightly pressed lips. A thoughtful glint in his reddened eye, tinder-sparking flint.

"Tell me, Montjoy, the truth of the tragedy."  
" _Your majesty._ "

He pushed up off the floor, headfirst into a sunburst of hard white light, and reeled as it snowed down, one arm pressed over his eyes. In an instant, Henry was up, holding a hand on the small of his back, taking his weight as he staggered in place. "Truth is the province of prophets," he said, flinching from the contact. He stumbled as he shied away, tangled up in the thin linen tails, falling headlong in a lingering blindness. There was blood on his hands. There was blood on his bare skin. The lightheadedness was the blood loss, but the confusion was self-inflicted.

Henry lifted him, by the arms and knees, as he folded up. "What are we to speak of truth?" he murmured, struggling weakly, fighting the urge to lay his head down in the crook of the offered shoulder. "Hush," Henry ordered, "We are going."

"Where?" He was exhausted, and Henry was humming softly as if he hadn't heard. _It is a song for the solitary road. It was a song never meant for sharing._ "Henry?"

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 2


	32. Dust of the Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As He made us, capable of love. Deserving of it.

“The first time the Fox saw the Lion, he was terribly frightened,” Henry said. They ascended the stair one step at a time, as the short winter day drew shadow down the frosted window panes. In the lodge’s strange dearth of servants, or hunters, or howling hounds, his pensive voice tiptoed through a crystalline silence, crisp and careful, bearing the story. “So he fled.” Every word progressing on the beat of a blind step, feeling for the next with the tips of his soles. The rhythm was his matching breath, its only audience his quiet burden. “Fox, come back, the Lion commanded.” He drew the herald’s head in as they scraped around the narrow turn, and pressed to the confines of his chest, Montjoy barely heard him whisper, “But the Fox did not hear.” 

_He is the King of all beasts, but the one he would have._

“Put me down,” he said, and was casually ignored. Overhead, the streaks of painted grass bobbed and swam in an imaginary wind, and all the speckles of wildflowers twinkled through old coats of web and dust. _Where?_ He counted the steps as they went. An old habit in a new place. The candle holders hanging from the ceiling were empty. The torch brackets still unlit. In another hour, this way would be as black as pitch. 

“The second time the Fox saw the Lion, he stood at a safe distance.” He knew this fable. The way in which Henry told it, it was sweet. It was childish, and charming, but it had more than one ending. “He watched the Lion pass by.” The fading light bronzed Henry’s slim smile a rich antique shade laid somewhere between the garish light of day, and twilight shrouded in silver so uncertain. “Fox, come closer, the Lion demanded, but the Fox did not listen.” 

_He is the fiercest of all beasts, but the Fox will not fight._

“And the third time the Fox saw the Lion—” Henry shouldered through the first door on the left of the second floor landing and into the bedroom. _Nineteen steps up. Nine before the turn._ Into the faintest fragrance of linseed oil, of dried lavender and crushed rosemary in bouquets hung upside-down over an empty fireplace. _One step only unto Heaven’s gate._ Greeted only by a single fresh candle in the central cup of a three-tined holder on a claw-footed circular table. A slim taper was laid crosswise over the base, awaiting the day it would turn to flame. The sole source of warmth was the high hall underfoot. What remained of heat rising gradually through a foot of fur, stone and wood. _Who knew that Eden’s kingdom would be so cold?_ A sudden gust of musty herb-scented dust, as they fell together into the feather-filled mattress, silk sheets crumpling without a sound, as they submerged into clear, still water, into winter rivermelt while the sun shines down. _In another hour, the ice will cover over._

The soft grain of Henry’s grey velvet-fronted shirt spread up against his bare skin, warm from hours before the fire, hot with the presence of the speaking body. The compress of thigh against hip made him grimace despite himself. He took a steadying breath, and said, “The moral is—” If he was caught, it was by a shaft of sudden sunlight as it pierces the cloud cover. It was made of light, not lightning, and as heavy as the light lay, on his chest, weighing down every panting breath, on the waist on down, it had not yet his surrender. “Familiarity breeds contempt.” 

The irony was not lost on either of them. 

“The moral will be what I say it is.” Henry showed his teeth, pressing in, nipping him on the neck, on the bare shoulder, hard enough to draw out the ghost of a stifled gasp. _Laws made by men are not writ in stone. Laws laid down by lions are not sacred. They are as transitory as our lives are. Few as momentous_ . 

“Hail, Fox,” Henry whispered harshly, into one ear pricked. He heard the slanted smile. Or was it a snarl, ferocious as it was? _Yet this one will crack the sky open._ “Hail, red coat, quick, fearless, and canny,” Henry breathed out, nosing lightly over his cheek, and down to his lips. He felt the warm air slip over his skin prickling, and turned his head to the side, refuting the kiss. _This one will thunder._ It only made Henry chuckle. “Now I have the sweet scent of thee.” He was patient. He had hands on either side of his prey, and could see no way for it to escape its fate. “I shall devour thee whole, before ever letting go.” 

_They call it falling in love. Falling. The weakness is in the man, no matter the scripture._ “Hail, Lion.” He answered. Soft, and still even. _Sound and fury. Light and thunder. No surrender._ “Art thou hungry?” he asked, craning up so their lips touched. “What of mine shall sate thee?” Henry tasted the lean siren smile. Off only the tongue’s tip, a faint wet hint of submission, sapping resistance like a tapping knife. “What tribute to serve on bended knee?” It was an incantation wrought in force, offered up from the supplicant, from a position of unexpected power. 

_Men are simple._ “A fatted hen, freshly plucked?” He caught Henry’s hand as it trailed lightly down his waist, and in return Henry raised them both to his mouth. Fresh coppery blood stained his lips red just for a moment before consumption.“A little lamb, of barely a week?” Were they still breathing, either one? The air in his lungs was thin and hoarse, expanding as it boiled up, but he forced it out over his tongue nonetheless, in a language that grew more remote with every word. “A perfect calf with the palest white skin?” 

_Men are weak._ Henry shook his head impatiently. His fair hair scattered the last lustre of the half-hidden sun. His eyes had traded their azurite radiance for the sheen of the darkly hunting. _Men will fall._ “Bring me a raven what’s been taught how to speak. Blue-black. Sharp-eyed. Tattered at the edges.” His tongue flicked out to taste skin. “Sweet-tongued and so circumspect. My Lord. Your Grace. Your Majesty.” He sounded mocking, then he sounded sad. “Bring me a simple song. Bring me poor jests. Bring me dread condemnations and royal behests.” Then, he sounded so sincere it hurt to be holding back. “But most of all, bring him to me freely, of his own accord.” 

“ _Freely_?” Like a shield splintering, like a splint smashed in two, the word cracking through to broken bones. “All tributes are given freely.” _It hurts._ The fingers of his free hand curled tightly over Henry’s collar, clutching to the glimpse of revelation writ on vast blue sky. He pulled Henry’s head up, away from his screaming skin. “As coins unto Caesar.” _Like freezing rain, it hurts._ His back bent back into the yielding bed, retreating. “As a cross unto Saladin.” 

_Ice as it falls from a Throne long since insensate to our pains. Once upon a time, it would have rained fire instead._

“As a map for Xerxes?” Henry asked, one brow raised. “Of the path that winds over Thermopylae?” 

He bared his teeth in a snarl at the King’s indulgent smile. _But the Fox will not fight. When cornered, it turns. It will try—something._ “You may name me Ephialtes if you wish, and hang me there on a hill in Thessaly.” _I shall deserve it._ “There are a thousand such tales to foretell our fate.” __

“Tell me them all.” 

Every hoarse breath felt predestined. _It feels unfair._ “Wax wings melt in the sun.” Every passing second had since been writ in bone, lost of an ancient time, now inescapable, now inevitable _._ _It feels like falling._ “Bones sink but feathers float. The Aegean will carry them away.” 

_This is a rite from a time when every revel must end in sacrifice._

Henry crooked a finger and beckoned languidly for more. 

“Town mouse and country mouse visit the city. They feast, and play, but the cats take them both at the end of the day.” 

He was no stranger to words without weight, but no matter how grim these were crafted, they seemed to trouble Henry little. _Is there really no way?_ “The moth cried to the flame, I gave you my life, but the flame retorted—” He bit his tongue. The wrong story. 

_Teach me, Scheherazade, how you kept your stories straight?_

“It replied, I allowed you to kiss me.” 

“Enough,” Henry decreed. “You are no moth,” he said, “You are no mouse.” And then leaning over, casting his face in shadow. “You are a spirit of finest gold.” On the breath of his soft kiss, a fleeting sea breeze. “And fire will only refine you.” Onto his skin like rain pattering down, suffused with the clean smell of fresh water. 

“Listen.” _No more riddles._ He heard his own breath pitching low and wild, the whine of an obeisant hound as it shivers to challenge the alpha, shaking out of its own daring defiance. It knows why the alpha is what it is, and it shivers, but still it must speak before it submits. “I have had a lifetime of being kept. Of being used. A pet. A bird that sings and speaks and entertains, but always— always it comes back to its cage.” _Of being trapped and beckoned for abuse._

“I know the shape of a cage. One I opened with a knife. One I opened with an axe. So you may collect upon your tribute, King of England, as you have wrought this moment. As this cunning cage you have constructed, but I shall not come back to it again.” 

_Even for one night. Just one._

“I know.” Henry brushed a finger over the wet bandage, and putting it to his lips, anointed his brow with a kiss. “Though a thousand tales teach us nay. Though a thousand morals stand against. And all that you have learnt screams out in warning, I know. But I know this too. We are not wrong.” His law was the spoken word, not written, but enacted. _Fiat lux. This moment._

“What are we, Henry?” It was raining salt water from a sere and sunless sky, or, he was crying. _They call it falling. What it is, is our wax wings crumbling. Flight was never meant to be ours._ “We are beasts of the field. We are Solomon’s foxes. All made of disgrace.” _Sinners meant for the suffering._

“Close your eyes,” Henry said, pressing his hand over them to lock in the hot darkness. There was a slickness on his palm. Sweat or tears, or fragrant wax, and the suffocating scent of him. “Listen.” 

“We are dust of the ground.” 

_We are small things. We are sun and snow._

“Close your eyes.” Where were his hands, to resist the blinding? They were tearing at Henry’s sleeves, at the cloth on his back, clenched in the folds of his shirt like the soft linen burned. And it burned like a furnace. It scorched him at the bared waist, as Henry stripped off hose and braies with his free hand, in the darkness despairing. _Fallen meant for the flames._ Skin on softest skin, they were rubbing together, and making fire. 

“All we are is as He made us. Capable of love. Deserving of it.” 

_We are lion and fox. Essential spirits opposed._

“Listen.” _The sound of your voice. Sound and light. Light in the darkness. Manna in the desert._ “All we are is what we are to each other.” _Nothing else matters._ Henry had four fingers hard on the thread of his beating pulse and thumb and tongue were pushing in two fronts and encountering only the most token of opposition. _Not hellfire._ Only the softest snarl falling from parting lips. _Not prostitution._ Only the slightest tremor along long parting legs. _So let there be light._

“Listen.” Henry hesitated. To air the question, he knew even just the sound of it could stop their hearts cold, but when he pulled back and saw the herald, blind and trembling and openly vulnerable, he realized it was already too late for his heart. _We are too far gone. We are falling fast. We are feral with hunger._

“Do you love me?” 

He said, “I—.” 

He said, in desperation, “God made us to love Him and Him alone.” 

_creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem. He is a selfish God, and a jealous one._

“God gave us choice so love would even have meaning.” Henry smiled. He had not even smiled to receive the day at Agincourt, but he was smiling now. 

The scripture is contradicting. We will only comprehend by revelation. _Strong, and weak. Strong enough to take. Take, and you will have it fleeting, but you will have had it. Weak because you ask instead. Ask, and you risk losing everything._

“Do you love me?” 

_The truth is, He gave us rope and freely we learnt to hang ourselves on it. Dear God_ , “I love you.” __

His back arched sharply against the penetration. Too desperate to be painless, tearing a fierce whimper out of him. “Hurts?” Henry murmured, without slowing, without stopping, panting hard and slurring the word, the whisper, barely born, losing instantly all of its meaning. “No,” he lied. But it _hurts_. Hurts all over, skin breaking bloody. Hurts all up and down and under the hand tugging, the hips pressing in. The hard pain. The searing darkness. Lips burning. Skin burning. Heart burning up. Hurts like pure love. 

_Deserving of it?_

* 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Version: 4


	33. Raven and Oriole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You shall fight your hearts out, ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river.

Blood _, our mystery._ They were coated in it, as it streamed from his arm. It seeped from his neck, and wicked merrily along the narrow vacuums of skin and skin separating, ruining the cast-off clothing they nested in. _Our fluid written word. Our oldest magic._ Cold air clung tightly to the white salt smell, the taste of sharp iron, and isolate in the cavernous darkness the last trace of sweet honey hung on gamely. _We are of dust but we bleed in color. As if we mean to tell Him, our agonies matter. As if we could say anything to Him who made us. Like ants, we make signals in crooked lines._

“Someday I will betray you,” he whispered to the ear couched on his neck. Strands of fair hair in disarray teased at his lips, dry from panting, and made him clench an aching hand, straining fresh blood through the damp bandage and down to his fingertips. _A sacrifice enacted. A battlefield past sunset._ Shadow and silver take away the shade but not the telltale sheen. _Our swallowable souls. Our contract._ “When my master rouses, someday, I will deliver your ransom letter.”

“Mmm—” A thoughtful sound was muffled in skin as Henry stirred and turned over. In this moment, he was serene. He was timelost; ageless. A _titan._ Time was one of those things they had relinquished along the way. One of many. Of light, fading with the sunset. Of aches itching and wounds cooling, and heat that they had shared, burnt up from the inside and lost in reckless profusion to the frigid fragrant air.

It was _s_ till, but for their beating hearts. Quiet, but for their slow breathing. His bared back was a fierce promise and the touch of his warm skin was its conclusion. _Panoptikon,_ Montjoy thought, drifting through as though drunk. _Great, strong and watchful._ He raised a hand and hesitantly, swept Henry’s short fringe into order, exposing a contented smile. Even the smallest movement was glutinous in the thick darkness. His head felt dangerously hollow, his intent uncharacteristically fragile. _Your fate was preordained in thunder. A messenger comes, mercurial and sweet-tongued, to charm your eyes to sleep._

Like a wolf sated a week, gorged on raw meat, Henry batted languidly at the hand that lingered over him.

“And if I languish captive,” he grinned, “Will you succor me, as your father did mine?”  
“Your father needed no aid.” _He was a force and a presence. Even in his silences. Especially in them._ “His son—”

The sensation of Henry licking blood from his fingertips was an immense distraction. He struggled to complete a shallow breath. There was a weight on his chest and it was heavier than it had any right to be. For a long stricken moment, he had to bite on his lip and drown out the clawing urge to struggle free.

“Fearsome as he comes, his son shall suffer no grievance.”  
“Even as Agincourt comes to haunt? As its widows come to claim?”  
“Who shall dare to claim thee, King of England, but my master?”

He shifted uneasily, certain of nothing. _We have only time, until the titans march, to be together._

“I shall save you for him.”  
“Oh? For him—?” Henry said, laughing.

_We have been building the Bastille for fifty eight years. Its high calottes were designed for thee. It is one end of thy destiny._

*

He watched the two guards as he waited in line. One wore the Duke’s azure checkered band around his arm; the other on a crest embroidered on his jacket. Up at the castle gates, they peeked under the cloth covering of a horse-drawn cart and not liking its contents, bickered fitfully with the carter and each other. The one on the right was helmeted and bearded. His watch partner called him Douglas as he folded his arms and gestured up at the castle, making a point with a scowl. It might have been his family name. Here in the North, the herald was far from certain. His partner was bare-headed, long hair tied in a loose knot. A casual, humorless grin showed the tips of his even teeth. They did not seem to be friends. Something of their manner made him wary, though he couldn’t decide why. The cut of their clothing, plain yet well-kept. Gloves of soft kid leather and boots with oiled exterior skins. Their ambivalence towards those waiting to enter the castle.

Douglas leveled his spear abreast of the mare as the herald walked his mount forward. His partner swept a half-lidded glance over the azure and gold tabard, and leaned back against the stone wall. He tucked his spear into the crook of his arm. A hard glare shot off one way, and deflected off a loose-limbed shrug. The spearman spoke up. His chopped-up grinding-rock lowland burl defied all comprehension. Tiredly, Montjoy tried to watch his moving lips, but the curling beard made them hard to read. Glancing from one to the other, he peered at the speaker’s device, and tried to think through the fatigue of the morning’s ride.

“Douglas,” he muttered to himself, searching for the man’s name. _A heart. A red heart. A Douglas of Douglas.  
_ “ _Qui est votre sieur_ , _héraut_?” the younger guard asked in passable French, surprising the herald, who took a second look at his coat. _Quartered a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure. A Stewart with a princely education.  
_ “The King of France,” he said simply. Their expressions washed over him. The one on the right a range of rumbling crags, moving with the earth. The one on the left sharpened swiftly.  
“A bodewird frae France?” Douglas demanded.  
“Shall I know thee, _Seigneur?”_ He touched his fingers to his bottom lip deferentially, “or of thee?”  
“Aye, know him, heir o’the tyneman,” laughed the Stewart.

Douglas whipped his spear up and around, snarling, “Spak on ye pitten bletherskite.” Stewart leapt up from his reclined position. His brightly cutting smile looked hungry. His opponent bared his teeth grimly. Their spear hafts crashed together, sharp like blue sky thunder, and flexing mean, like bows in tension snapping their strings. They did not preen or pose, like Italians, or observe rules, like Frenchmen. They simply went at each other with singular intent. Montjoy watched the fight without an intervening word until, inevitably, his contact made an appearance. The Albany herald spared Montjoy a single glare as he shouted over the disturbance. He had to shout a few times before the fighters disengaged. It was another several heated moments before they clasped hands. The Stewart’s smile did not waver. The Douglas sunk deeper into his frown. Politely, Montjoy pretended nothing had happened as he greeted the Duke’s herald.

“Alexander—” Albany waited until they were beyond ear shot to grouch unhappily. “Montjoy King of Arms, what did ye say?”

Montjoy rolled an eye at him as they turned onto the steadily ascending path to the inner keep. Albany matched him with a dead-eyed stare. He was a Stewart, a fact which, applied with some inaccuracy, contributed greatly to his personal standing. However, he was not a Stewart-Stewart, nor an Albany-Stewart, and grew prickly in the presence of those who knew the key to the difference.

“What should I say to some guards?” He shrugged. “I said I am the herald of the King of France.”  
“Montjoy—That was _Robert Stewart_.” Alexander waved a hand in front of his eyes with mock concern. “Have ye gone blind?”  
“Then the Douglas?”  
“Archibald Douglas.”  
“Princes at the gate accosting poor carters?” Montjoy said blandly. “All is not well in your state.” _Richard once thought he had heard the end of Mowbray and Bolingbroke._ He glanced at Albany, and decided not to draw the comparison.  
“Watch yourself, Frenchman.” Alexander made a gesture with a fist and a palm. “Even the Duke’s grandson run afoul o’ his temper this sennicht.”  
“A warning, Stewart? I’ll thank thee for it.”  
“Need a wairin, King of Arms? Henry hocked his crown ‘fore he would ransom Murdoch. Now all ye braw Lords gied him a fortune in gauntlets, so ye better have something guid for the Duke.”  
“I have a letter from his son.”  
“Is that it? Leave it with me then.”

He did not make a move to offer the letter, nor did Alexander did not hold a hand out for it. Instead they smiled at each other, a hint of toothiness on one side, a flash of long incisor on the other. The Scotsman was not razor-edged, like William, nor well-informed, like Giovanni, but he was canny and no fool.

“What of those good things I may bring for the Duke?” Montjoy hesitated on the doorstep of the inner keep, and looked up at the flag that was flying over Stirling. It was distinctly ducal in device. _What of his King?  
_

“That date on which Henry will take all his men to France?”  
“That’ll do fer a start.”

*

He watched in silence as Henry rose from bed. Wrapping only a sheet about himself, Henry felt his way in the gloom to the claw-footed table. The taper flared up, as he laid hands on it. Its brilliant glow lit Henry’s smooth smile from below, illuminating his steady touch as he raised the end to the candlewick. On the rich, slender candle, the flame grew tall, and stood up straight. The nimbus expanded, and travelled. Henry knelt before the fireplace. Watching him was strange, and the strangeness was suffocating. Like a heretic in a holy place, testing the strength of his own lack of faith. As the silence became overwhelming he was compelled to speak. _If only to hear my own voice._

“I went for a walk down the Southampton docks, and counted the ships there building.” Shifting accents, like climbing into a suit of cumbersome armor, “and I asked, when will they be done?” Straight from the streets of London town, smoky as the dirty fires, and prim as a court counting house, enough to fool the next Englishman over. Henry said nothing, as he worked, but by the dimly flickering light, Montjoy saw his head turn, just a fraction, for just a moment. “I went for a ride around the walls of Harfleur, and there I counted the guardsmen,” he said, propping himself upright in the bed, and searching around the dark folds for his clothing. “The riders, coming and going. The carts on the southern road, and their contents.” Shifting languages, simple as divesting a linen shirt, to French, to a clean northern accent of a native son of Normandy. “And I asked, what devices do they bear? _combien d’chevaliers a-t-il? le duc d’Exeter?_ ”

He was not sure what he expected from Henry, and hesitated, as the fire began. Kindling shards crackled and went up in great flashing tongues, consuming the taper whole. Henry drew the candle back so the wax would not go. As he reached for a log the burning glow profiled him in lines of stark clarified light. Lips flattening, losing their smile, though not quite in a frown. Thoughtful, like the cast of his brow. Bare limbs armored by hot firelight, in brushed gold and beaten leaf, near thin enough to breathe in.

“Men go into steel and fire. Into storm and boiling sea, they go willingly.” He spoke to the flames like an oracle, but he was making history, not prophecy. “For me. I know. All for the sake of me. Horses charge broken stone. Archers in linen charge knights in plate.” He fed the wood solemnly into fire. The most mundane of sacrifices, but the herald could not tear his eyes away as it caught light. “In the vaward, a man worth a king’s ransom faces the seething chop of swords alone, and refuses to surrender. And dies for it.” The next log went beside the first, leaving a space in between for the heated air to rise, where the flames would feed. “My men. Mine. Martyrs in my name.” And the third went on top of them, supported on either end. When its fellows crumbled into ash, it would fall into fire.

“You rode into _my_ camp,” Henry said, rising to his feet, “and counted all my men.” He set the candle back on the table, and returned to bed to sit by the herald. “My archers. My horse.” Montjoy dropped his head, suppressing an acute sensation of vertigo as Henry put his arms around him. “What did that avail your Marshal?” Henry whispered into his ear, and the truth was no less brutal for being so softly delivered.

“Nothing,” he had to answer. _If only to know that I am still alive._

*

Like a skull picked clean, just bare castle stones made their acquaintance, casting a scraped silhouette over the lonely landscape. They came south and west out of Windsor Great Forest, and lost the low sun in the lengthening shadow of the curtain wall. Henry looked up at the twin towered gatehouse, and named the brooding stone and snow behemoth with a hint of surprise. The herald said nothing in explanation.

 _You cannot come with me._ Exasperation mounting, he had finally abandoned his manners. Henry had laughed out loud. _Where in my Kingdom may I not go?_ A handful of retorts leapt to mind. _Stirling. Harlech._ He knew better than to voice them. Tired of standing around the cold stable bickering, his mare nudged him impatiently. _Don’t you, King Henry, have more worthwhile pursuits?_ He tried to sound critical. It only came out petty. Then, Henry climbed into the saddle of his fine hunter, ending all argument. _This is worthwhile to me._

The portcullis was raised, and the gate propped open on an oblong stone. They rode in unchallenged. A lone guardsman descended from the gatehouse as they dismounted in the courtyard. Arms folded tightly, bare hands tucked into his armpits, he watched in dull silence and offered them no assistance. Through the frosted keep windows, Montjoy could see shadows stirring in response to their presence, but any signs of life were shy, and softly skittering. He took Henry’s reins and led both horses into the covered stable. Man and horse left a flurry of new prints through the smooth drift of snow on the ground.

 _Teach me that song._ There was one tune and six verses. He translated them word for word. Henry made up the English as he went along. The old growth, snowed-in and serene, smothered every sound into sweet devotion. _Birch is our watchword. Slender and pristine at the beginning of things._ Dismounting abruptly along an unsigned path, Henry beckoned him into the clearing ringed and sprinkled with winter-stripped silver birches, and headlong, he had fallen for his infectious grin. _Hawthorne marks our numbered days. May tree and maypole make happy wives and honest husbands._

The still air inside the shuttered stalls tasted stale. Settled in its seclusion, resisting breathing, resisting the living with a density that felt unreasonably obstinate as he passed through. A thick standing chill muted the smell of horseflesh and day-old manure. He breathed it in through his mouth and felt it weigh him down. The stack of clean straw was too small, and the store of feed low, but at least the barrel of clean water was covered, even if he had to crack an ice sheet to draw from it. Distant chatter filtered in from the other side of the wall; just about audible. Henry asking the sleepy young guard if he had ever fought in France. The quiet reply was abruptly drowned out by a fierce snort from Henry’s hunter, champing and stamping anxiously in his small allotted space. Montjoy threw a coarse blanket over his wide shoulders, and cooed in his ears to calm him. A gust of laughter from outside washed over his numbed skin like soft mist. He exchanged a stare with his haughtier mount as he released her into her own stall. _You saw them as they went to die._ “ _Et toi_?” He dared her to complain. She flicked her tail and looked down on him curiously. _Do you hear? The sound and smell of English ghosts._

*

“How should a man live in this, our time?” Henry flashed him an enigmatic smile, and a gesture that made him shake his head warily. Meticulously, taking his time, the King began to clear away the thin layer of snow at the base of a birch, exposing grass matted flat and frozen solid. _“_ Are we to be Gawains, and Lancelots again? In this great age of chivalry?Humphrey would think so.”As he speaks the name of his brother, a cloud seems to brush by the heatless sun. “Is this the time for conquest, and conquerors?” When Henry looked up the smile was falling away. “If John has his say. And Thomas there sighing and shaking his head. His weary age of endless conflict?”

To every last movement, Montjoy watched him unblinking, to the twitch at the tail end of his mournful dying smile, to the flash of grey fur as his cloak fluttered for an instant, to the hand he held out, perhaps for the herald, and yet, perhaps to catch the falling sun, or to hold the ether still. Montjoy did not take it. “It is of thy make, moment by moment.” _It is not summed in a word. It is neither idea nor ideal._ “What would thou make of it?” In this pagan place, he had to whisper, and because he had whispered, he drew closer, abreast with Henry, who put one hand on his wrist, and one hand on his shoulder.

“This is the very last age in which a man must touch another to kill him.” As soon as Henry touched the herald, he felt the shudder that rippled out, down the rapidly stiffening back, and up into a mutely petrifying expression. The body moved to his will, as he pulled it closer, but the spirit was stubborn. “This is the final triumph of archers,” he in turn whispered. The spirit resisted, as he embraced it, but the body wavered, thirsting for warmth in the harsh white winter. “We in this age— we must cry for the hanged man. For the drowned, dig graves. And for those we love— we must make contact.” _Whether you would kill a man— or kiss him._ He kissed him, barely, just. Sleek, as a sliver of a youngest moon. Soft, as the dying man’s last breath. Yet still casting light. Still making sound. “This is an age of contact.”

“A man should live simply,” the herald murmured, looking down at his bandaged hand and turning it over. “Let him not struggle so. In March, let him find his sweetheart. Let him have children in the summer. A full harvest, in September. Let him be home in time for Christmastide.” 

“Where is your sweetheart?” Henry, taking his hand, was sincere. “Where lie your fields and pastures? Advent is nearly over. Will you be home by Christmas Day?”

“No,” he breathed out, closing his hand into a fist.

“You could be.” He deflected the question by leaning out for a kiss, and Henry obliged him. Simple. _Men are simple. Men should be._ “You should be,” Henry said, pressing him back up against the birch tree, “Here.” He said, “Not even for one night.” It made Henry grin again, made the herald remember his face cast in amber, half in shadow, half in light, as the logs flared up, bark, then vein, then heartwood.

*

The young girl squealed “Shans!” as soon as the door opened, and to the pincered grimace of the matron behind her, picked up her skirts and rushed headlong into the sunlit solar. Head bowed, he dropped to one knee as she approached, drawing his head level with her shoulders. A last bastion of propriety, and manned with resolution. It had to be, to stand defiant.

 _Defy this fierce young Lady._ Barely eleven. Barely married and newly widowed. Wedding candles still flickering in the chapel alcoves. Soon she will have mourned him longer than the span of their union. Defying without recompense the impulse that would throw her hands around his neck, like a child, as she had always done, because she could no longer be considered one.

She smiled at his somber expression and played along, thrusting forward a slim imperial hand.

“Lady Dennington,” he said quietly, brushing his lips to the back of her fingers. A frown flashed across her open face, churning up the glassine surface for the span of a thrashing tail, swiftly submerging into ornamental stillness.

 _Defy this curious King._ In grime, in quiet guise, hiding a small smile behind his hand as he stood back, and disappeared onto cloth-covered castle walls. Fine, but not opulent. Painted, but not gilded. As the herald’s escort, he had passed without comment. A closer inspection might have revealed a King. Too clean for his like, too composed. But he had too the fighting form, the lean scarred body and the shadowed eyes. The right posture to pass.

Henry leaned against the far wall and politely averted his gaze from the Lady. He exchanged a glance with the matron, but she did not pay him back a second. She was too busy scowling as Alice defied Montjoy’s stiff formality and threw her arms around his neck. He felt Henry’s gaze raking the back of his neck, and on the edge of it, the warmth of a mess of questions boiling over.

He said, “I’m sorry.”  
“What for— _oh_ ,” She shrugged. “He was a noble man, was he not? A great knight—”  
“He was first through the breach,” he promised. _He was an Englishman of Henry’s make._

She wore a black kirtle over her black gown, and had a black ribbon knotted up in her hair. Wan failing sunlight through wide uncovered windows picked out the shiny newness of it all. _He died pale and parched and choking of disease. One of many._ “And that is all the matter,” she said softly, “as they say.” _And there is all the epitaph for the brave Lord Dennington_. A lightning flash husband, in and out of existence in a heartbeat. She wore the mantle of mourning with a purposeful attitude, if not an agonized one. Meanwhile, the emptied castle whined like a hollow pipe, filled by cool winter winds.

“God forbid, Lady, that each pleasance in one thing were, and in none other wight,” he said, feeling wicked as he did, but not guilty. “Each for his virtue holden is full dear, both heroner and falcon for rivere.” From somewhere behind him he heard a quiet snort, and stifled sounds as Henry shifted his shoulders in disapproval. _There is a last word fit for all the fallen English. One hawk for another. One dog much like the other._ Alice scowled with unladylike indignation, and shook a small fist in his face. “My dear departed husband, some casual pleasance?” His smile was rebuked with a hard look. “Grandda would have you scourged, the way you appropriate his verse.” She stormed across the room and began to rummage ferociously through the cabinets. “Bravely then. To thine own peril, commit.”

“If one can singe, anothir can wel daunce—” He anticipated what was coming when she spun around, arms raised overhead, and held out his hands for it. It was a round-bodied Vielle, painted and varnished, that tumbled as it flew through the air and smacked into his palms with a discordant note. He winced as the cut began to throb, the warm upper castle softening the frozen linen, unearthing from numbed flesh a distracting salt and vinegar ache. “Manly now. Set the world on sixes and sevens.” A matching bow was drawn out of the cabinet. As she tapped it against her palm, its slow rise and fall dominated his attention. “And if thou shalt die a martyr, go to Heaven!” Hands full, he ducked, and the bow went whistling over his shoulder. “Your—” he began, turning to retrieve the bow, but his breath caught up hard against Henry’s indecipherable smile, as the King held it out for him.

“O Death!” She cried straight over the stricken silence, not noticing their wordless exchange.  
“Since with this sorrow I am afire,  
Thou either do me anon in tears drenched,  
Or with thy cold stroke my heat quench.”

“Mercy on me, Grandda,” he muttered. “She has studied the text.”

He put the vielle to his shoulder and played three soft notes in a questioning tone, cutting short the overwrought soliloquy. Surrounded by warm wood and cool stone, the strings sounded plaintive. Though harmonious, crying. Far too sad for a roving singer to earn his keep. In a curtained solar, paired by black thread, ringed in black ribbon, he could see a shadow of a slim figure sitting before a bright snowy window, accompanying itself on a quiet funereal dirge.

“Thy bold magpie, thieving and sly. Pay a penance for thy mockery,” she commanded, settling into a cushioned chair and drawing up her knees to her chin despite the matron’s scorching glare. Amongst the cheerful floral patterns, her mourning clothes made her thinner and paler.

“Vouch it a raven, I shall. Blue-black. Beady-eyed. Bad weather charm.” The bow dipped down to caress the frayed strands, and created no sound but a soft teasing sawing. “Cawing noise without meaning. Take no heed, Lady.” He was glad Henry was behind him, so he couldn’t see his expression.

“Nay, tis’ a swallow, fork-tailed, fork-tongued. Gone ‘fore the first snow o’er the ground.”

 _What made you think of that one?  
_ _Father, husband and son, taken by morning tide?_

Her eyes had narrowed and her lips screwed up tightly, so he tightened a peg and conceded to a song.

“Tell him to make me a cambric shirt,  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”

Tears _, our loneliness. Salt of our body’s make. Water from our darkest well. Our shared inheritance._

 _My father had a talent for language._ French, in a dozen varieties, every one a native son. Another half-dozen from the sunlit isles and city-states and walled towns. Sibling dialects from the peninsular south. Brothers-in-arms from the imperial north. Even one or two fit for the eastern front. And English, which had been easy to learn. _Language for a hundred stranger courts. Words as needles, precise, blood-letting._

“Without any stitch or needlework  
Then he shall be a true love of mine.”

 _My mother had a gorgeous singing voice._ Sweeping out an open window into a cloudless cerulean sky. A chorus from the cooling breeze. The bass undertone of buzzing bees. The susurration of verdant summer leaves. _Verses without deep meaning. Songs as sentiment, fierce yet fleeting. Honing a sensitivity to the sound of all things._ Many little rhythms harmonizing. Wood being chopped. Hoofbeats. Barking. Someone laughing. All enveloped into a song of old Provence, or Catalonia.

*

“Alice Chaucer,” said Henry, pensively. The start of some kind of lecture. Montjoy knelt by the side of the low wooden bed, and tucked away the last ends of the sheet. How simply they had earned their hospitality, like poor wandering minstrels, with a weary song or two. No sooner had the servant who had shown them the way turned his back that Henry was barging into his stone room with a meaningful attitude.

He should have lost him when he had the chance, out in the up and downs, from one snowy vale to the next. With his own mount, and his reins and his tack on her back, he might have raced Henry’s fine young palfrey down the snowswept road. He could have challenged. He might have lost him. But, uncertain, unprepared, he followed instead, into the silver columned clearing. He considered if he should fix Henry’s bed for the King. The thought was a precipice around which he edged like a blind man, cautious and sensitive.

“Tell me, then.” Tentatively, he looked up at the King. Henry’s tone had been reasonable, but his gaze was gusting with the sharp green scent of command. The smell of fresh-cut pine in the frost of a twilit grove, drawing out an answer as reflexive as a witch-ward from a seasoned woodsman. “The only child of Thomas Chaucer.” He offered up an ablative warding. A handful of chaff to splinter the hot sunshine, to make shade in an air hexed and flammable. “Married for the first time in March. The second wife of Lord John Philip Dennington.” Henry touched his cheek with two fingers, demanding attention, receiving it fitfully as he fidgeted with the bandage on his hand. “I know.” Fingers trailing over his forehead, a gentle benediction, and then down the back of his neck, pulling him closer. A warm touch on the inside of his collar made him shiver and draw back. “Widowed in October at Harfleur.” The woodsman had blinked, and lost the horizon. Rising from the knee-deep snow, a tilting sense of vertigo. Falling from the bright, blinding sky, a numbing surrender of sound and bearing. “This time around her father will make her a Countess in white miniver.”

“Montjoy—”  
“Your Majesty?”  
“How well do you know her?”

Ground and sky the same colorless color, and depthless depth. Fork-tailed silhouettes in the high blue wash, heralding in exodus, the first snow. _A swallow, deserting._ He canted his head, gaze freezing over as he examined Henry’s expression. Henry said nothing as he stormed from the room without a backward glance. _A fox, for the first time._

*

_The clay oven, out of inattention, had cooled to embers and ashes. Yet, the kitchen was dry and searing, making his eyes twitch, his skin itch. Hot and uncomfortable, he shifted under the burden of her incandescent glare._

“Ys—” he said quietly.

“Be still?” she spat out, like a mouthful of poison. The two words struck him across the face more painfully than any blow from her hands, which were clenched whitely in her apron. “Give in! Dear God, is that the best advice the vaunted Valois herald has to offer? The best he can do?”

“Yes,” he whispered. When she threw the first thing to hand, a large onion, he made no move to avoid it. It bounced off his chest and rolled away into a corner. “Sorry.”  
“Are you?” She sneered and flourished a rigidly pointed finger. “Get out.”  
“Ys—please.”  
“What is it you want from me, Jacques? Forgiveness? Absolution? This is a kitchen, not a confessional. Notre Dame is that way.”

It was not the vitriolic tone that made him flinch, but the look that shot knife-like over the kitchen table, malicious with hurtful meaning. The way his gaze leapt away from hers almost softened her demeanor. She knew he did not go to service. Sunday mornings, she often came back to find her work tables commandeered by parchment, ink and chalk. Quill in hand, moving steadily across the page, he would pretend her indignation was genuine and apologize. He would pretend he preferred the scarred and gouged surfaces of the kitchens to the smooth cedar on the second floor.

 _I didn’t have to knock._ There was an instinct that muttered dimly in his ears, like a brook in a sleeting storm. The one that contrived to be both right and wrong at the same time. When he heard the muffled high-pitched screaming coming from the Duke’s room he had instantly turned away from the closed door. Then, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, he had turned back again. He had knocked.

“What should I have done?” She stared at him incredulously, lips working up and down in stricken rage.

 _You should have gone back to the stable and waited it out._ The girl was young and slender and extraordinarily pretty. Ysabel should never have allowed her into the upper hotel while the Duke was in residence. Nevertheless, he had knocked, and entered. “Ys—I tried.” He looked around helplessly, unable to explain. Years of tense, tightly worded conversations kept him from admitting a lie, no matter the company. _I lied. To my master, I lied. For a servant girl. Ridiculous._ “I tried.”

“You had a chance to let her go, and you told her to lie still for him?” Ysabel screamed, scrabbling at the table for more ammunition. “You disgust me,” she said, throwing the next onion. _A single glance at the Duke’s expression was all he had needed._ “Heartless.” The potatoes, they hurt like rocks. “Selfish.” _One of his tests._ The papery leeks. “Coward!” The wooden bowl full of walnuts that pelted off his skin to skitter along the wooden floorboards, their wrinkled shells surprisingly spidery. _A test for his recalcitrant herald. He was satisfied when he came back, and they were both there._

“I will have just one opportunity to disobey him. It will not be for a stranger.” She was panting from her exertion, and he still had not moved a single muscle, but for his eyes traveling slowly from corner to corner, hiding in the shadows from her heated glare. _Selfish. What do I want from you? I remember her pale hate-filled face._ “I tried my best. The advice was good,” he said finally, turning to leave. “The only means to divert him is to bore him.” _And since it was not enough, you can hate me for it._ She lunged around the table and grabbed him by the arm.

*

Lacking practice, he watched his own stumbling fingers. Lulled by the music, Alice’s gaze drifted out of focus, towards and then out onto the wintry view. The matron was silently working on a half-finished embroidery hoop. Without anyone noticing, Henry stole all around the edge of the room, and on the cusp of the third verse, picked up the melody on a harp he liberated from the cabinet, shocking Montjoy right off his neat timing. The bow skewed in surprise, shrieking out of tune, and count faltering, he missed the next beat. Onto the lingering sour note, Henry sang a song that was only a cousin to the one he had begun.

“Ye maun wash it in yon dry well  
Blaw, blaw, blaw winds blaw   
Where water ne’er sprang nor fell  
And the wind it blaws my plaid awa’.”

Like an Englishman with a Scottish wife, Henry’s Lowland was an uneven marriage of both languages, but he picked the harp with an expert’s confidence. His low voice poured in thickly, grey fog down a steep highland bank, enveloping the room in a disorienting sense of descent. Montjoy stared, and Henry gave him a mischievous smile. _A compass star. The only light. A cold windshear. The only feeling. Close your eyes, and listen._ He closed his eyes and played to Henry’s key. A singular vision of the prince that was, weeds and nettles and all, before the crown had winnowed his wild spirit. _All we are is dust in the wind, and the wind will take us to wherever._

“Ye maun dry it on yon hawthorne  
Blaw, blaw, blaw winds blaw   
That has nae blossomed since man was born  
And the wind it blaws my plaid awa’.”

Alice was staring intently at Henry, one small hand on her chin. A meticulous calculation in her eyes. She wore a charming smile, and under that slanted line he tallied up the sum of her thoughts.

“Now I am surprised,” she declared. “A pair of warblers bely their rough brown trim. A sweetly matching set—”  
“That?” He made a wry face. “No plain warbler. An oriole, full golden-feathered, golden-tongued. Have him, my Lady, have him. For a noble, I shall leave him hence.”  
“What of thee, bad weather charm?”  
“Pay me a ha’penny to depart, and the storm shall follow me out.”  
“A fine pair of rascals,” she concluded with a laugh. “Far too fine for my company. For sixty, eight and half, I willst thee both to Westminster to sing for my favor.”

_Caged in gold, wild birds will cry. Bright night sky. Warm fire. Hard ground. Lonely moon._

“Henry Plantagenet is King in Westminster.” Over the top of her head, he received Henry’s amused stare without blinking.

_Caged birds will sing, of unknown things. What heart’s-ease? What hard condition?_

“Ay, and?” She scoffed. “Shall he disdain you, Valois King of Arms?”

Finally, he had to laugh at his own expense. “He has fought for the right to disdain any man and won,” he chuckled softly, and started the next verse before she could respond.

“Tell him to find me an acre of land,  
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.  
Between the salt sea and the sea strand,  
Then he shall be a true love of mine.”

*

In the small barn that housed a dairy cow, and a pair of hairy goats, the grey gelding towered above them all, reigning from a stall that was three times the size of the rest. Montjoy put his finger on the seam where the intervening walls had been sawed off and sanded down, and smiled. “Kincaled,” he murmured, moving slowly around the suspicious horse, running ungloved fingers through his mane, his tail, considering. “Though your ears are not red, nevertheless, what a handsome sight.”

Whispered praise reassured the warhorse as he picked up each hoof in turn, and examined the bottom of them, tapping on the beaten-down nail heads critically. “Though your master wears no pentangle, nevertheless, what a fine fivefold knight.” From the threshing area at the front of the barn, his own mare called jealously for him with a piercing whinny. The cow lowed, long and disdainful, and Kincaled stirred grumpily, ears twitching. He had to drop the leg he was holding in a hurry, making Henry laugh.

“Kincaled,” Henry mused, eyeing the gelding’s bearing with an ironic smile, “How far you have come from fair Logres. What strange neighbors you have found.”

“By a mount on the moor, merrily he rides. Tall hills on each side—”

The barn door banged open, silencing his recitation. Cut brazenly against the pale midday sun, the dramatic shadow of an Englishman as he drew a longbow as tall again as himself with the sure symmetrical curve of a well-made weapon in the hands of a competent soldier. Lips pressed to a fierce line, surveying the crowded barn floor. A pair of horses at the front, one dark, one light. A stranger with a vaguely familiar face, leaning against the barn’s central pillar. He was armed, yet not alarmed. The scabbard on his belt was scuffed brown leather, and the hilt of matching color and condition. He took in the leveled arrow calmly, and met the archer’s stare without fear.

“Do you always fend off thieves with a longbow, Englishman?” Montjoy asked wanly as he emerged from the stall.

The question was devoured by Robert’s sharp grin, and he snapped his shot off into the rafters. “What do you know of thieves, King’s herald?” he retorted, laughing merrily as a storm of loosed straw poured down onto them, burying both men up to the waist in a sweet-smelling morass. “Don’t you know they should run at the sight of _me_?”

He was still laughing when he pulled them out, one after the other, with a strong right arm. “My apologies,” he said to Henry with a shrug, then enveloped the herald in an embrace tight enough to make him wince. Under his vaguely neutral smile, Montjoy observed Henry’s hand brushing by the hilt at his waist, and gingerly pushed the Englishman to armslength.

“I have a writ for thee, Seigneur,” he said politely. “Will thou receive it?”

Robert raised an eyebrow, and beckoned for both men to follow him. They emerged into the shoveled yard, and the attentions of a young boy brandishing a bow and arrow so small it must have been made especially for him. “It’s aright,” Robert waved him away. “Get your mam to set the fire. We should be in shortly.” The boy sniffed as he slackened the bowstring, as if disappointed, and ran off behind the house.

“You had your hands all over my horse,” Robert groused. “Have you come for me or him?”  
“He needs exercise,” Montjoy observed.  
“Call my horse fat?” The Englishman widened one eye.  
“His shoes are crooked. Your smith has a shaky hand.”  
“All day he beats ingots into arrowheads. He works hard.”  
“A horse is no arrowhead,” he sighed.  
“Depends on where he puts those shoes,” the Englishman laughed.

Henry chuckled, but the herald only shook his head. They went around the garden piled with snow to the long building at the end of the stone-lined path. Its wooden shutters were cracked on the high side to admit the midday sun, and a thin column of smoke rose steadily from the chimney on the far side. As Robert admitted them into the workshop, the man at the table did not look up. He was bent over a vice with a squat pot and a damp brush, peering down closely at assembly of wood. The thick smell of molten glue and sinew was overwhelming, bringing Montjoy to a halt just inside the doorway.

“Brother mine. This is a royal herald with writ in hand,” Robert grinned and rolled his eyes in Montjoy’s direction. “Pray, could you set down the glue for a moment and join us?”

“Shush,” Richard hissed, knitting his brows in concentration. He drew the brush fluidly down the belly of the bow. The sickening odor did not affect Henry, who wandered from table to table, inspecting their contents with an air of critical interest. A state of intense organization held sway, from the stacked discs of tightly coiled strings to the conical piles of shavings, suggestive of an artisan who would take his time despite any imminent fall of the sky.

Robert leaned on the nearest counter and offered the herald a crooked grin. Shafts of half-shuttered sun fell on him, delineating every coarsely shaved stub of hair on his cheek, every curling lash and falling fringe, and the translucent reef and ocean color of his eyes as they surfed and submerged and rose again. In the strange, breathless silence, Montjoy nearly flinched when Henry spoke suddenly. “The center will not hold.” He stood behind Richard and pointed a finger over his shoulder to a section of the design. “Here. It’ll tear itself apart.”

Montjoy looked to Robert for explanation, and the Englishman shrugged.

“Christ.” Richard grimaced, lowering his brush with glacial dismay, “Damnation.” He spun around and appraised Henry. “An expert? Rob? Who is this?” He grabbed Henry’s left wrist and turned it over, inspecting the roughened skin. “ _Robert_ ,” Montjoy said in a warning tone, hiding his apprehension. Fielding glares from both sides, Robert responded with a flashing smile.

Richard knelt and grabbed a bow from under his worktable, pressing it into Henry’s hands. It was of an irregular length, short, for a longbow, or long for a recurve, and banded about the center with patterned horn. “Won’t hold?” He grinned all of sudden. The smile smoothed out the furrows under his eyes, and showed his true age, within a year of his younger brother. “Try it,” he demanded and dragged Henry by the arm out the workshop’s back door.

“I hope your friend has as much interest in bows as he seems to profess.” They stood together in the shade of the workshop wall, out of the wind, and watched Henry draw the three-quarter bow. Like a longbowman he braced his feet and laid his bodyweight in for the pull, but the bow flexed tenderly like a willow branch. Richard was saying something, animated and gesturing. Henry had tilted his head to listen, but hand and eye were unwaveringly trained on the painted straw target down the line of the close-cropped field.

“Friend?”  
“Escort?”  
“Look again,” Montjoy replied in an undertone. The first arrow flew from the weapon, too fast to follow and drove into the closest target all the way to the base of the fletching. _Off center. Did the weapon or the warrior jitter?_ “I, the escort, and he, the Peer.” _The shining sword in a battered scabbard. The oriole amongst the starlings._

Robert’s hand shot out and snatched his collar, tugging it down to expose the bandage that wrapped his neck. “Wet,” remarked the Englishman. He pressed a finger to the linen and frowned when it came away gritty and damp. “Weeping. Days old.” He showed Montjoy the smear of jeweled color, but the herald’s stubborn silence held up against his bright glare.

“Whose throat did they mean to slit? Yours? Or his?”  
“Shall _mon Seigneur_ prefer a lie, or an excuse?”

Hissing an indistinct oath through teeth clenched in a grimace, Robert took two handfuls of his shirt, and thrust him up against the wall. “Care, Robert,” he whispered, pushing back on the Englishman’s shoulder. Less than fifty feet away, Henry was firing steadily, one per deep breath, one per deliberate heartbeat as Richard handed him arrow after arrow. The distant tock-tock of steel striking sacking and straw was the only assurance that he had not yet noticed. “That man will not understand.”

“Is that a threat?”  
“A fact.”

To his great relief, Robert huffed and released him, but the relief was short-lived, boiling away around the knight’s hot-knife snarl. “We will see what he understands.”

*

“Did you see my father?”  
“Not this passing week.”  
“When last?”

He counted back his channel crossings. “25th of November.”

Her disappointment was obvious. _Thomas Chaucer is Speaker and Parliament Member and Knight of the Shire and Chief Butler, and far too busy to console a married-off daughter in Berkshire._ It was certain from her faraway expression that she knew.

“When next?” He made a disassembling gesture. “Will you—” She broke off, reconsidering.  
“Shall I escort thee to Ewelme, my Lady?” he asked gently, “We could be there by Christmas Eve.”  
“No.” She pinned him with a condemnatory glare, the meaning of which he did not quite understand. “Who has been to see him?”  
“Less two months—”  
“Who?”

He sighed. “Salisbury.” The news was by turns second and third-hand, but that did not preclude him from being the most reliable oracle of her future. “Northumberland. Suffolk.” He tried a smile that came out wan and strained. “A handsome Neville or a brave Montagu?”

“Which one will come back from France?” she asked archly.  
“A Marcher Lord perhaps.” He wrote in the air with the tip of his bow. “Most Cherished Father, the airs of Scotland are bracing this time of year.” She scoffed so loudly he thought she was choking.  
“Escort me to Harfleur. I wish to receive my husband’s bones.”  
“Does there lie a welcome for me in that lion’s den?” He glanced at Henry. “The walls are lined with Exeter’s men. His knights patrol the fields for miles around. Even the peasants have learnt his device.” _Arms of the Kingdom, bordered gobony, azure and ermine. They know now not to trust the quartered lilies._ Henry was playing a whisper with a dreamy, far-away expression. In the distance high above, the melody trailed wordless, tuneful fingers, wispy and ethereal.

“You will be with me of course,” she said, and he suddenly realized how deadly serious she had been all along.  
“Your father would have my head within the week.”

“Hmph—” She ground down to a moody silence.

“In the company of the Duke of Gloucester.” Henry turned all the heads in the room towards him, as if he had shouted rather than murmured. “My Lady may go in the company of the Duke of Gloucester,” he repeated, when Alice beckoned to him. “In two weeks, he goes Harfleur to Rouen. He will surely not turn down such fair company.” With a hint of a smile, he nodded to himself. “And as displeased as he may be, your father shall not have his head.”

“So I will,” she said decisively, to Montjoy’s horror.

“Please reconsider, Lady Chaucer.” He shot Henry a mystified look. Had the English King been an English herald, they might have been having a heated argument in their signed language. As it was, Henry’s thoughts were obscured. “The way is chancy, treacherous winds and wartorn soil. It is too dangerous.”

“Gloucester is the King’s official representative to the Valois court. Whose surety on his safety?” Henry asked.

He exhaled his frustration in a stifled hiss, as Lady and King stared at him expectantly. “The Valois King,” he said finally, with open reluctance.

“With the aegis of two thrones,” said Alice, “what of earthy things shall I fear?”  
“Your father—”  
“I am the Lady Dennington,” she said severely, her face a mask of cold clay, and unfallen tears, sealed up behind the eyes. Entombed in snow, as she stared fiercely out the window. “It is the last thing I will do for my husband.”  
“The crossing—” _Even the storm came to the King’s crossing.  
_ “Sing— thou swallow on the wing, I’ll hear no more of thee.”

 _My God, and what of all these gentlewomen in England still a-bed?_ He glared at Henry.  
_“_ And when ye’ve done all this work _,_ ” sang the King with a gleam in his eye.  
“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.” He sang a soft, upset tenor, and Henry sang his misty baritone.  
_“_ Come t’ me and ye’ll get ye sark _.”  
_ “And then he shall be a true love of mine.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to the Elfin knight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w83PusGtvEQ 
> 
> Version: 5


End file.
